Empire

11 Strays

As dawn crept over Jefferson Harbor, Senior P.O. Voorhees was making his way back to the homeless shelter. He was passing the East Harbor Mall when he saw a dog walking across the parking lot. As it came closer, what he thought to be mange turned out to be rot. The dead dog looked at him with milky eyes and turned to go in the other direction.

He almost couldn't bear the thought of harming the creature. Then he thought of the other dogs it would feed upon. Voorhees dropped to one knee and patted his thigh softly. "C'mere boy."

The dog glanced back but kept walking away. He couldn't bring himself to draw his sidearm. "C'mere boy! C'mon!"

Voorhees was fifty-nine years old. The outbreak began nearly half a century before he was born, but when his mother learned she was pregnant she resolved to keep the baby. His father had reluctantly agreed. The old man wasn't a bad parent; he fulfilled all his duties, taught his son to be a man in the face of a nightmare world. The old man just wasn't there in his heart, and Voorhees had always known it, as far back as he could remember.

They had a hound, a mutt named George; Voorhees never knew his father's first name but he suspected it was the same. One morning, before the sun had risen, ten-year-old Voorhees' father had pulled him from bed and taken him behind the house.

George was tied to a post amidst the tall grass. The property was surrounded by a ten-foot fence and the dog acted as a lookout in case rotters came from across the fields. On this morning, George had been lying on his side. His tail wagged feebly when Voorhees and his father appeared.

"He's been bit." The old man said without emotion. He gave the boy a few minutes to let it sink in, then continued. "A couple of days ago I guess, when we were hunting. I never saw the dog — or whatever it was — that did it. Didn't even notice the bite until last night." Voorhees thought he heard his father's voice break and looked up. The old man quickly knelt to raise one of George's forelegs, exposing the wound.

"We're all scared to die," he whispered, "even George here. He knew what was gonna happen and he hid it from me. But what's best for George — son, you know what's best."

Voorhees tasted tears on his lips and nodded.

"There's a reason why I'm making you do this." The old man said. He pulled a revolver from his jeans pocket. "You love George, don't you?" The boy nodded.

"So do I." His father replied. He pushed the gun into Voorhees' trembling hands. "But this is what's best, what's right."

"Dad- " The child began.

"One of these days," the old man stammered, and tears formed in his eyes, the first and last time Voorhees would ever see such a thing, "one of these days, son, I'm gonna get bit. It just happens when you go out there as much as I do. And I'm gonna hide it…" He choked, cleared his throat loudly, continued in a croak. "And I'm gonna beg you not to kill me, son, but it's what's best. I need to know you'll do it and then burn what's left."

The old man stood back, away from Voorhees and George. He did one more thing that he had never before done and would never do again.

"I love you, son."

"I love you too Dad."

Voorhees knelt and scratched George's head. Through a blurry sea of grief he aimed. The mutt sniffed the barrel of the gun and rested his head on the ground, as if to say it was all right, that he understood, even if every animal instinct in his body was telling him to run.

Thirty years later, Voorhees had seen the same look of pained acceptance in his father's eyes. He'd raised his service pistol through a blurry sea of grief, blinked the tears away to ensure his aim was true, and pulled the trigger.

"C'mon then, George," Voorhees said to the dead dog in the parking lot. He held his hands out. Something in the vestiges of the canine's brain stirred. It sat and stared at him. Then it came.

The gun was meant for the living. It could only slow an undead down, and that was a crapshoot in itself. Even a bullet to the head only did so much. If you were lucky, you maybe crippled or blinded it. No, fire was the only way to end them, and the best way to incapacitate a rotter prior to setting it ablaze was decapitation. A "widowmaker" was a sort of cleaver designed for that purpose, capable of parting bone as easily as flesh, in the right hands; Voorhees loosed his from its sheath on his back and waited for the dog.

When it was done, he drenched the body in lighter fluid and struck a match on the asphalt. Its soiled fur went up in seconds. Voorhees sat on the curb and watched it burn away.

At the Holy Covenant Shelter, a new arrival was being checked over by Yeats, the resident doctor. He'd been a paramedic at some point in his youth; without the proper medicine and equipment, his knowledge wasn't really worth much, but it brought peace of mind to the group.

"What's your name again?" He asked the grizzled, muscular man sitting on the cot before him. "Shipley." Came the answer. "And where are you from?" Reverend Palmer followed up.

"Nebraska."

"What brought you here?"

"I was…I was with an Army platoon, you know? They gave the order to start pulling back and, I dunno. I just didn't want to go back."

"Why not?"

"Prison tats." Voorhees' voice startled all three of them. He stood with Oates, who'd just let him in. Lifting the sleeve of Shipley's t-shirt, the P.O. studied the numbers there. "When did you get out?"

"I was drafted while I was still inside, man. Couple years ago." Shipley eyed Voorhees suspiciously. The look was returned tenfold. Yeats and Palmer excused themselves.

"So you deserted, rather than head north with your platoon?" Voorhees scratched the stubble on his chin. "They probably wouldn't have locked you back up. They need soldiers more than inmates." Shipley shrugged, and Voorhees finished, "Maybe you just didn't want to be someplace where it'd be so easy to get caught committing another offense."

Shipley grimaced. "Man, I ain't gonna do anything else wrong. It's just, I still had another seven years on my sentence."

"They didn't commute it when you were drafted?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Right. What were you in for?"

Shipley looked down at his grimy sneakers. Voorhees waited.

"Assault. Of a minor."

"You mean sexual assault."

Shipley nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"Just one minor?"

"Just one."

Voorhees sat on the cot and clamped a hand on Shipley's knee. "So, what does it for you? Boys or girls?"

"I haven't even thought of doing it again. I swear."

"Boys or girls?"

"…She was a girl. She was fourteen. And it was fucking consensual, I don't give a fuck what the court or anyone else says. They weren't there. Okay? I'm not a repeat offender, it wasn't like that. I LOVED her. It wasn't like I just saw some random piece of ass at a bus stop- "

"It's never 'like that', is it?" Voorhees put on a pitiful frown. "It's not like you're a filthy pedophile. Not like you deserted so you could come down here and pick up where you left off. Are you always the victim, Shipley?"

Shipley didn't answer. Inside he was fuming, but he didn't dare lose it with this guy. He'd hacked his way across the badlands of five states to get here and it sure as hell wasn't for any girl…

Across town, in the landfill, Gene wiped a syrupy film from his pale skin. He was secreting fluids, attracting flies and ants; there were ants in his pants, something that briefly struck him with an odd feeling before he forgot all about it. The insects were feasting on his flesh, and though he didn't register any pain he did need to stop them. Gene went into the shack where he'd once lived. Card table, bed, radio, shelf of foodstuffs and chemicals. He fumbled through the shelf's contents while hiking up his pants leg. There were a couple dozen ants teeming on his calf. Ants. Ants. He repeated the sound in his head and studied the cans on the shelf. Ants. Ants. The letters on the cans were all gibberish, lines and loops forming a language he no longer understood.

One of the cans had a cartoonish drawing that resembled the insects eating his leg. He pried the lid from the can, exposing a spray nozzle. The cartoon ant grinned happily at him and he wondered if the stuff inside the can was good or bad for the bugs.

Kneeling stiffly, Gene sprayed his leg up and down. A faint burning sensation accompanied the writhing and falling away of the ants. He followed them along the floor with the spray to make sure they didn't come back. Maybe there were some on his other leg. He sprayed down the front and back of his uniform until the can sputtered and gave out.

Bluebottle flies swarmed around his head. He searched the shelf for a can with flies on it. There wasn't any, but one can had other winged bugs on it. He sprayed it up and down his body. His eyes stung, but he could still see.

Gene walked out of the shack. He thought of something. Shovel. He could get at more meat inside a body with the shovel. Where was it? It was supposed to be here. He tried to

(remember)

picture it. In his mind it was laying atop of mountain of garbage. There were lots of those here. Gene clambered up the nearest one.

Reaching the top, he didn't see a shovel. From here, though, he could see the next hill, and there it was.

A sharp crack drew his attention to the boat chugging along the shoreline. A half-second later the bullet tore through his shoulder and he fell.