City of the dead part
Brad wasn’t designed for the apocalypse. He still didn’t know what he was designed for. But it wasn’t this apocalypse.
He had taken a year off from school. Partly because he needed a break to figure things out. Partly because he flunked managerial accounting. That was another story. His dad wanted him to get a business degree and since Brad didn’t know what he wanted to do he followed the track that was laid in front of him like a donkey tethered to a mill wheel.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t do the coursework. It was that he didn’t particularly care about the outcome. That existential apathy led to some procrastination and bad decisions which in combination with a feverishly self-important professor led to a point of failure.
So he decided to take a year off. Regather himself. Rebuild some energy and momentum. They had quite a row when he got home. His dad lecturing about how he was wasting money and advantages that he would have killed for when he was his age, working two jobs, 20 hours a day, two young kids…
And Mom playing the part, chiming in with ‘He’s only 19 year’s old Brad’ (his father was Brad Sr.), give him some space, kids are different now-a-days…You’re not going to solve anything by yelling…’
In the end it was decided that a year off was a good thing for Brad Jr. But, this would not be a year of backpacking in the Pyrenees, sipping cappuccinos and nibbling croissants. The boy had to learn about real life and work. He’d been coddled too long.
Nor was he to lay about twiddling video games. Brad Sr. knew a few guys. Brad Sr. would find him a job. Brad Jr. would get up early, grab his lunch bag from his Mom and work with his hands and learn what work was. Then they’d talk again about college.
And so Brad Jr. found himself working the second shift in Distribution Center #2 of the Vita-Fine Pharmaceutical Company.
And he loved it.
He didn’t have to think too much. He just showed up at noon, punched in and did what they told him to. He was a quick study, a bright kid and soon was a key cog in the Vita-Fine wheel.
Bradley Jr. wished he could have thanked his dad. This was exactly the perspective he needed.
The self-worth of working hard and fitting in and making a difference in small ways. The pride of being part of something. The paycheck every two weeks to drop into an ever-expanding bank account that seemed like a fortune to a 20 year-old.
He wished he could have told his Dad.
He tried to get up from his bed to go to his dad that day. He could hear his dad choking in blood and mucous and tried to get up to go to him. But, he didn’t make it.
He woke up later in a stain of his own blood and mucous on the carpet of their 70’s ranch house. Somehow his immune system had fought the battle with the virus to the edge of life and turned the tide. Somehow he had survived it when the rest of the world didn’t.
When Brad had regained enough energy he buried his mom and dad lovingly in the back yard and only then could he thank his dad for the job, and everything.
…
Now the old man grabbed his arm and hissed, “let me do the talking.”
Brad felt the old man’s strong grip on his arm and watch as the old man hunched over and assumed the guise and deportment of a real old man, an aged and feeble soul. With the old man shuffling and supported on his arm they emerged into to daylight of the dock door.
Brad was scared. These people might be a gang of killers. One of those small tribes that now roamed the wastelands of the apocalypse killing and taking. Humans devolving into their tribal state, that truthfully was never that far away.
The weak and the uncareful were pushed aside from suckling at the mother teats of the old world. What was humanity? In his gut Brad knew, despite the old man’s bravado, that this was one of those moments where their lives hung in the balance.
A group of men in camouflage fatigues, like National Guard outfits stood by their collection of motorcycles. One of the men, maybe the guy in charge, held up a hand. “Hold it there fellahs. Who are you and why are you breaking into this facility?”
“Are you the army?” Brad blurted out and the old man pinched him.
“Gentlemen, excuse my nephew’s manners. We are survivors, like you. We came here looking for medicine for my eyes. We didn’t break in. Brad is an employee of this facility. Would you like to see his badge?”
“No, that’s ok. But, we’re going to have to take you back to the store to talk to the boss anyhow, so just relax.” The leader-man extracted a walkie-talkie from a mesh pocket and spoke into it, nodding to the others as he did so.
The rest of the men assumed disinterested poses and looked more bored than violent.
In a few minutes a beat-up minivan pulled up and they loaded Brad and the old man into the back where the bench seats should be. Their wrists were zip-tied behind their backs and they were checked for weapons, but all of this felt more like routine than the lead up to death.
Their cavalcade slowly made its way through the roads of trash and grease stains into the small city of the port.
Eventually they were pulled, blinking into the scarred light of a clean parking lot. More men and women milled about in front of the strip mall here. Some watching and guarding. Some going about chores. There were a couple heads poking out behind stacks of sand bags on the roof.
It all seemed normal and organized to Brad. Maybe this would be some new structure to his life. The only thing out of place was a wooden structure, of to the edge of the parking lot. Brad squinted at it and elbowed the old man.
“What’s that? Some sort of swing?”
The old man focused, and looked older. He shook his head and said, “Gibbet.” With a flatness of tone that did not match the frenzied churning of his mind.
They were prodded towards the entrance of what appeared to have been a Golden’s fitness center. Brad felt his world getting smaller, his options narrowing and his future dimming.