23 Eric Mayer
1758 Words
Eric Mayer had been a pudgy, orange-haired, freckled boy in childhood all the way to his adolescent years. He also had bad teeth, which necessitated braces of all configurations for most of his young life. That and an IQ which MENSA invited him over for made Eric prime target for school bullies in all the schools and colleges he ever went to.
The bullying only stopped when he made friends with Paul Justinos…and when his orange hair somehow lightened to a shade closer to blonde. Even the freckles retreated.
So it was definitely frustrating to be, once again, on the receiving end of a bully’s cruelty.
No, not the playground and high school type of bullying.
Adults do it worse—or better—than the juvenile.
Adults do it in subtle ways, too.
Since arriving at the safe zone, Ben had always felt struck off group lists. Not that he was desperate for any sort of group. Whatever. Yet there was always a hush whenever he approached. It wasn’t a respectful silence. It felt like they were all waiting for him to do something…horrible. Or embarrassing.
In the few years he’d been inside the safe zone, he was tasked to help with infotech stuff. In short, the usual motherboard repairs. He was fine with that. Anyway, he was getting paid a paltry sum for it but at least he was getting paid. After losing his immediate family to the virus, Eric had to sell everything and decided to live in a safe zone. Here, at least, there were no zombies to watch out for nor the virus.
He was fine inside the safe zone until he was called to the commander’s office and given another job.
To organize the government’s military database.
It had seemed a simple job to Eric, initially. It was all clerk work, really. But when he started running into data blockades and a huge amount of encrypted data that had nothing to do with “simple military work”, he began to suspect something was going on that the authorities had no idea about.
And then someone started the rumor that he was a spy.
A spy?! A spy for whom?!
Word spread that he was spying for the government, for Pearse-Sachly, for Morgan, et cetera, et cetera. That he was part of an experiment on humans and that the people inside safe zones weren’t at all “safe”.
And so he instantly became a pariah, with only a handful of friends left. None of them were military or had careers in computer science so they didn’t really care about what he did inside the safe zone.
Several weeks ago, by some great fortune (or misfortune), he met Paul again. Too bad, the guards would not let him in because he was infected although, at the time, he didn’t seem to be so. Paul looks almost like the way he did back in Pakistan.
“I wonder where Paul is now,” he thought aloud. Eli, one of his companions, looked up from the book he was reading.
They were all gathered under one of the few trees within the safe zone, Eric and his misfits. It was a daily afternoon thing before they were called in for supper and then separated into cells for sleep.
“Who’s Paul?”
“The friend who was at the gates,” answered Andie, an ex-circus performer.
“Ah.”
Andie quit her stretching exercises and sat beside Eric. “Why’d you suddenly think about your friend?”
Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. I just miss the guy.”
“Is he the one whose wife and kid died in Pakistan?”
Eric nodded sadly. “I never saw Paul again after he ran off to try to save them. And when he was court-martialed, we were forbidden to see him. Last I heard before he came here, Paul was taken to a laboratory for vaccine testing or something.”
“Don’t you work with the database?” Eli asked, flipping a page. “You could’ve checked on him there.”
Eric shook his head. “That’s just it. I did look for him immediately after getting the job but his records are always under lock and key. His name’s in the database of the infected but other than that information, there’s nothing. Or there’s something but they won’t allow access.”
“Why is that?”
“Beats me,” Eric replied but it did bother him…has been bothering him for a long time now because there was no one else on the database, infected or not, that has ACCESS NOT ALLOWED in bold red letters emblazoned across their files.
And while he was worried about Paul, he was also worried about what was going on inside the safety zone. As of last week, several of the scientists and doctors who were in the compound were taken by dark armor-clad soldiers. He thought he was going to be taken but they skipped his cell. Families were torn apart; there was a lot of arguing and crying. A small riot ensued leading to someone getting shot.
“I really believe the people here are not telling us something important,” Andie said, wriggling her toes. “Like, every week, they just cart people away somewhere.”
“Not just any people,” Eli added, closing his book. “Why are they taking the scientists?”
“Soon, they could just take me, too,” Eric told them with a grim expression. “They took Diana Beaufort yesterday…and she’s a networking specialist.”
Why? Why? Why?
The three friends were silent until Andie spoke in a low voice. “Let’s leave.”
Eric raised his eyebrows at her. Eli frowned.
“What do you mean? As in leave?” Eli asked incredulously.
Andie nodded. “Yeah!”
Eli snorted. “You think they’d let us out? They’re trying to bring down the infection and us, non-infected, going out there is not okay with them.”
Eric nodded in agreement. “Even though we came here of our own volition, we did sign a waiver that we’re not leaving until a vaccine has been made.”
“So you mean we’re just going to stay here and watch you get dragged away to god knows where?”
When neither Eric nor Eli answered, Andie pressed on. “Something fishy is going on, I know you feel and see that. And don’t you notice they’re increasing the number of soldiers inside? I mean, we’re not such a huge safe zone to necessitate all these people with guns. And who’d they shot? Zombies? We’re all uninfected here.”
Eric and Eli exchanged glances.
“I know what you mean, Andie,” said Eli, scooting closer so they could talk in whispers. “But how are we even going to get out? The only way out is the front gate. And we can’t just climb over the steel walls…we’ll get fried!”
Eric recalled that the walls surrounding the safe zone were all electric-wired…
…and those wires were accessible via the safe zone’s encrypted network.
“I can close off the electrical circuit,” Eric whispered, noting the excited gleam in Andie’s eyes. “But you know, once we’re out there, our chances of getting infected will be higher. Are you all prepared to risk that?”
“Better to die out there on my own terms than to be a guinea pig here,” Andie retorted. “Once the electricity’s down, I’ll help you get over the wall. Eli, can you manage to get us some provisions?”
Eli nodded. “I can.”
Eric sighed. “Okay. We try to leave with as many of our friends as we can. I know that a new tour of soldiers will be coming in three days. We have to leave in two. Can we do that?”
Andie and Eli nodded in the affirmative.
Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
Eric did manage to close off the circuit towards the walls, giving them a ten-minute window to scale the wall with the help of Andie’s ropes and superb parkour skills. Eli and the rest of their friends were able to sneak out provisions.
But someone who was not their friend found out and ratted on them.
Eric, who had never held a gun again after coming back from Pakistan, was forced to fight and shoot at the soldiers trying to keep them inside. He was hauled up by Andie and Elie and once over the wall, they all began running, chased after by the soldiers.
“Where do we go?!” one of their friends asked.
Eric, who had memorized the map of the area, knew they were close to the foot of a mountain with lush forests. He thought they could hide in there without having to go deeper. The mountain was perilously close to where there were a lot of zombies prowling.
Of course, like the start of their day, more bad luck rained as the zombies began coming out, picking them off one by one.
Eric shot at a zombie about to bite into Andie’s neck.
“I’m running out of ammo!” he yelled to Eli who had already run out and was beating at a zombie with a tree branch.
“We can’t hold them off! Not this many!” Eli yelled back.
Eric looked up at the night sky peeking from between the foliage.
He was certain he was going to die.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
And out of the darkness, there was, indeed, fire.
Huge balls of them being volleyed from a single point, hitting the zombies, and incinerating them.
Beyond the flame and the smoke, a face materialized.
Not the for first time, Eric felt like he was in the twilight zone.
Now, looking up at the sooty, grinning face of Paul Justinos.
- Writer
