Tess
Withindoors, Joel received a vile effluvium of alcohol mixed with sweat. The place was dim lit by a single flickering bulb and had boarded windows, refusing the outside light to enter, consequently polluting the room in a fine layer of dust. Joel sat upon one of the barstools and kept his eyesight focused away from any prompting eyes of people looking for an easy fight. If they wanted one, they'd have to directly confront him, and Joel was sure his build was imposing enough to warn them it was not a good idea. The bartender serving behind the counter leaned forward into view, his figure previously concealed in the shadows of the overhanging oakwood beams.
"Good afternoon sir, what will it be?" He said throatily.
Joel liked him almost immediately. Straight to the point, no personal questions asked.
"Uh, one pint of lager please," Joel requested.
"Sure."
While the man disappeared, Joel snuck a quick glance at the regulars. Laughing from the alcove off to the left were a couple of rotund men with several empty glasses strewn about their table. Somewhere behind him sat a lone elderly man, nursing a half-pint of beer. Not a particularly wide variety of people, but that didn't matter.
Joel was interrupted by the plunk of glass upon table. He turned back to the counter.
"One pint of lager," said the bartender, " that'll be fourteen bucks."
Joel hesitated. Cognizant, he leaned over the counter and asked in a lowered voice, "D'you do ration cards?"
"Oh, yeah we do those as well. For the time being anyway." He checked around him before adding, "There are rumors that the government is shortchanging us, y'know? Withholding stock for control. But what can I do? I've got a family to feed."
Joel nodded sympathetically whilst slipping the bartender a ration card.
He then took his drink where he sat, fascinating himself with the way the light played on the mahogany of the table. He forced himself to take feeble sips, not out of etiquette but of the fact he hadn't tasted quality beer in a while. No point in wasting a ration card over good beer. And it was.
Suddenly, the door swung open, permitting a cool breeze from the outside that tickled the nape of Joel's neck. He twisted to face the newcomer, a woman, possibly in her late twenties, lean and muscular, her head topped with brown frizzy hair. She lithed over to the counter, ignoring oncoming looks and greeted the bartender, plonking herself on a stool next to Joel.
"Make it a bourben on the rocks Freddy," She said, her mezzo-soprano voice somewhere between a grumble and a sigh.
Joel kept his gaze down, shifting his glass between his fingers. The woman brought with her a pleasant attar that lingered in the air, nulling the stale stench of perspiration and eructation. His eyes found miniscule grooves in the wooden tabletop. He traced them furtively until he realised she was looking directly at him, a curious smile playing on her lips.
"You okay?"
Joel realised he was still recovering slightly from the deaths of the two men earlier and the agitated crowd, and his behaviour was thus affected - not just in the presence of the woman - without him really thinking about it.
"Uh, yeah... I'm fine," He replied; a weak attempt at secreting his emotions.
To his expectation, the woman detected this immediately.
"You don't look it," She said, taking a swig of her newly-placed drink. "I haven't seen you before. You an outsider?" She added.
It was only now that Joel noticed her slight Southern accent.
He nodded. "Just passing through. I'm not planning on stayin' for long."
"Why is that?"
"Let's just say it's not the type of town I'm used to."
The woman chortled, tapped the counter for a refill.
"Yeah, this isn't the most pleasant of towns, what with it being under a military dictatorship and all," She said.
"You sure got that right," replied the bartender, handing her a replenished glass.
"Cheers Freddy. You're from Texas, aren't you?" The woman addressed Joel.
"Yes, I am."
"I could recognise that accent anyday. I'm from the one star state myself."
Joel felt his eyebrows raise, in spite of his assumption about the woman's vernacular beforehand, now confirmed.
"What brings you here, of all places?" She questioned.
Joel took a sip of his rather untouched lager. "Um, I really don't know."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's just...somewhere to visit, I guess."
An uncomfortable silence followed.
"So how long have you been here?" Joel asked, not really interested in keeping conversation but did it out of politeness.
"Oh, about as long as you have. Arrived just this morning. I tend to travel a bit myself." She replied.
He nodded. For many, it was difficult to settle somewhere, as for him there were always triggers that reminded him of the past. But some triggers were worse than others. Joel kept the watch his daughter Sarah had given him, on the night she died as a keepsake momento, and it still worked to this day. It was a way of revitalising her presence in the back of his mind, so that he wouldn't forget. But there were also the heavy, onerous feelings associated with it, as an innocent, kind-hearted birthday gift suddenly became something of a much deeper emotional value. The watch was both a blessing and a curse, something that would remain with him until he died.
The woman then stood up, moving to leave.
"Been nice talking to you..." She waited for a name.
"Joel," He responded. "And you?"
"Call me Tess," she said.
"Ok then,"
"See ya, Texas."
With that, she left the tavern, marching swiftly out the door, her soft brown hair sweeping behind her.
Joel chuckled at her last remark. He hadn't had an extensive conversation such as this since Tommy was under his wing. But in terms of prating with women, that would've been many years before, about the time he was working as a carpenter. He'd always been cautious around women, especially his mother, whose controlling, manipulative temperament made him develop a subtle misogyny. He suspected it was part of the reason why Sammantha, Sarah's mother, left him. He was too quick to pout and argue, his anger perhaps coming across as unmitigated hatred. She'd moved to New York, and later married a successful assistant banker there. Sarah would sometimes fly out and visit her for a week, however Joel mainly did the parenting. Sammantha died as well as her daughter on the night of the outbreak - hardly making it through Madison Square before the bombs vaporised her body along with thousands of others. Her distraught father, Kenneth, who lived as a widower in Texas had brought him the news.
Joel wasn't sure what to feel. He'd still had feelings for his ex-wife, but honestly much of it was rather obscure, and mourning her death seemed a bit pretentious. He'd moved on, directing his attention towards raising Sarah. He tried as much as possible between builds to satisfy his daughter; watching her football matches, hiking through the beautiful Wichita Falls, at one point a holiday cruise to the Bahamas - just the two of them. Together.
And then, on 23rd September 2013, calamity struck. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a mutated parasitic fungal virus, spread from infected crops to the human species. That afternoon, the pandemic reached from coast to coast in a matter of hours. Authorities had little time to react to the outbreak. In just seven months, 64% of the global human population was decimated or infected by the virulent cordyceps virus. The speed of diffusion was surreal, as though it was an act of God. Cordyceps fungi thrived in enclosed areas such as the cities and underground subways. New York was hit first. In just three hours, San Francisco was inundated. In an attempt to escape, Joel asked for help from his brother Tommy to take Sarah and he to a safehouse outside Travis County. Unfortunately, the road there was already placed under a military blockade, and they were forced to take Highway 71 out. But everyone else had had the same damned idea. Escaping an oncoming wave of infected from the hospital nearby, they cut through a burning town, where they collided heavily with another pickup. Joel had awoken to Sarah's cries, discovering that infected were extremely close and that her leg was broken in the crash. Heading off on foot, Joel walked with Sarah cradled in his arms like when she was a baby, through a nightmarish vision of hell. Military helicopters whirred overhead, people sprinting every which way, and their chances of escape were wearing thin. Joel and Sarah were separated from Tommy whilst being chased by a hoard of infected. A hesitant soldier gunned them down. Joel was hit in the thigh, but Sarah didn't come off as well. Tommy came to the rescue, but by then it was already too late. There was no way to save Sarah. He picked her up, pointlessly reassuring her it was going to be okay, trying to stop the blood from flowing out her body. She died crying in his arms under the stars, his hands covered in her blood.
Sarah's death was incapacitating. Nothing hurt more inside than the anguish of losing his daughter. Feeling her slip away, her spirit deserting her lifeless body, into the realm of the unknown. That night, something changed in him, something that over time colloused him, permitted him to hurt and even kill for survival, something that to this day left him very few moral lines to cross.
At two minutes past three, Joel left the dramshop. He squinted in the afternoon light, regaining his balance. His shoes weighed as bags of sand as they shuffled over the floorboards, finding their way to the neighbouring bed-and-breakfast. He needed to rest if he wanted to make it to a settlement in South Dakota. He'd heard many positive things about this camp, the most captivating statement being a place for those seeking a second chance. Joel needed a second chance. At least, if he was planning on surviving for a while longer. In fact, for once he'd be able to focus on living; an ideal much more appealing than surviving.
The crowd had dispersed long ago, vanished in amongst the nondescript buildings. Joel caught sight of a military jeep moving east into an especially crowded section, followed by periodic shots of gunfire. Probably for control measures. Stifling the remnants of the rebellion. He paused, outside the entrance to the B&B, listening to the fight with the ears of an experienced hunter. Gunfire continued. Pockets of people were running indoors, others were taking to the furthermost alleyways.
"What the hell," Joel said, setting off to investigate.
He needed to make sure.
Suddenly, a bomb exploded a hundred feet away, sending a brilliant fireball that lit up the sky brighter than the sun. Joel ducked instinctively, feeling the heat on his face. Cries and shouts pervaded the streets. What the fuck was going on?
Hoards of frightened people spilled into the square. Cracks of gunfire brought them down, not twenty feet away.
"Holy shit," Joel said.
A feeling of dejavou overcame him, and he was back on the night of September 23rd 2013.
What are they running from? Sarah asked him.
Joel replied, "Infected."
He ran.
How the fuck had he not put two and two together? Overcrowded streets, unhealthy practices, poor security measures - this city was in prime condition for an outbreak to occur. Infection had struck again.
He ran westward, towards the city gates.
But as he apprehended, soldiers had already blocked the way out. Avoiding panick, Joel made his way back to the tavern. As soon as he tried the door, he felt a strong force jerk it back.
"Come on, let me in!"
The wailing grew louder, closer still. Joel pushed harder against the door, using his full upper strength. It gave a little, but not enough to fit through.
"Let me in damn it! I'm not infected!" He shouted.
No response. He was running out of time.
Joel pushed further into the city, following the crowds of people fleeing for their lives. Gunfire overhead. Victims falling around him, their cries echoing throughout the city. People were on fire, their faces of terror etched onto his eyeballs forever.
Trusting his instinct, Joel ducked into a narrow alleyway. He proceeded up a flight of steps on the side of a building, seeking a higher vision from the roof. Once there, he had a full panoramic of the disaster unfolding below. People screaming, running. Gunshots and hot explosions erupting from the pockets between buildings.
A pair of military black hawks thundered overhead, sending firebombs onto the streets below. Joel watched the nightmare of September 23rd unfold before him.
He could see people, who'd once regarded this place as a sort of haven, scrambling up the surrounding walls that held them captive, before being vaporised by the onslaught of hellfire. Sacrifice the few to save the many. But Joel could see too well that a plan driven by that same mentality was doomed to fail here. The houses caught alight with horrific ease, and in minutes the whole Southern and Northern quadrants were encompassed in a blazing ring.
A cold hand grabbed his.
Joel ducked instinctively, thinking it was an infected, but when he turned, he saw it was a woman. Five foot-four, brown hair and a frown drawn. It was Tess.
"Follow me if you want to live," She said, directing him back towards the stairs.
Joel didn't hesitate on her offer. He followed her down the stairs, back through the dimly-lit alleyway, into the side door of a nondescript building. The room was dark and lit by a single flickering bulb, the naked walls scathed with mold and vegetation overgrowth. Three other men donned with gas masks were there to meet them. Tess made for the aperture in the wall large enough for a human to crawl through. Joel followed, dubious at the presence of the masked trio.
"Don't mind them, they're helping us escape," Tess reassured him.
His feet struck mud. They were in a tunnel, lit by lanterns lined on the walls, stretching further than he could see. Tess was already moving ahead of him. The masked trio followed behind.
"Wait," Joel called, "What about my stuff?"
"You want to escape or be ripped apart by infected searching for your shit? Chances are, soldiers would have taken everything."
Her words were harsh but most likely true.
"Right," Joel said.
"Don't get sentimental about your fucking possesions. Best you know that now."
Joel hated that this woman was teaching him as if he were a child. Why did he feel stupid around her?
"Here, put this on."
Tess handed him a spare gas mask.
Joel took it and slipped it around his head. Breathing through the mask was like breathing second-hand air, which felt heavy and scarily insufficient for his lungs. Joel had never been underground before. That's where the infection thrived. Warm, damp places, such as caves and subways and underground carparks, where the Cordyceps fungus could spread and burst through the concrete of the streets above.
Bombs shook the earth, sending fine mists of loose dirt upon them. Joel kept his vision trained on the path in front of him. The terrain underfoot changed constantly from concrete to mud, making the going harder.
"You're lucky I found you, Texas," Tess said, her distinctive humor returning.
"I suppose I am," Joel muttered.
It was only until now that he realised she was bleeding.
"You don't look so good though," He said. "Need help with that wound of yours?"
Tess looked at the scar on her arm and shrugged.
"It's nothing. I'll patch it up when we get out."
"And when exactly will that be?" Joel asked.
"Not long."
Below ground level, time had no meaning, even though Joel had his watch to refer to. What seemed like an hour also seemed like five minutes. The explosions became less and less audible, eventually disappearing completely. When he finally saw traces of sunlight playing on the metal bars of the gate preceeding the exit, he exhaled a small sigh of relief. The journey itself had taken only thirty minutes.
Tess stopped before the gate, turned to face him. The skin around her wound had turned an angry red. She removed her gas mask and hooked it to her bag. The other men followed her lead, revealing three similarly vapid faces. Joel did the same.
"We're not in the clear yet. What we're about to enter is no man's land. The military has certain places mined, so just follow my lead," Tess explained.
"Yes ma'am."
"Good," She said, unlocking the gate and throwing it wide. "Let's go."