Craig DiLouie - The Infection

Other slaughterhouses in the camp process chickens, sheep, pigs. This one, the giant says, handles only cattle—steers and heifers mostly. The men here know cattle, how to stun them with a hammer, how to cut their throats and drain their blood with a knife, how to strip the carcass.

“So what do we do?” Ethan says.

“We move the cattle that comes into the camp into the pens.”

“From where?”

“The truck pulls up over there.”

“And we move the cattle about fifty feet into the pens? That’s it?”

The giant grins down at him. “That’s it. We were told some trucks are coming in today. Here comes one now.”

The massive tractor trailer trembles, coughing, as it pulls up near the holding pens. The cattle, crammed together inside, bellow sadly.

“ Águila , boys,” the giant says. He winks at Ethan. “Sharp eyes. Like an eagle.”

The men take their weapons and form a semicircle around the rear of the truck. Two men clamber up and tie a nylon net in front of the trailer’s doors. The driver, sweating in a camouflage john deere cap and hunting vest bulging with shotgun shells, gets out and leans against the cab, watching them and biting into a tomato.

“What do you want me to do?” Ethan says.

“ Caile . I want you to stand right here, bolillo .”

The giant moves to the doors, removes the bolts, and flings them wide. He quickly steps out back and to the side. A wave of heat pours out of the trailer. Ethan winces at the rich smell of dung. The cattle push against each other, jostling and raising their heads, lowing. Their eyes gleam at him from the dark.

Ethan wonders why nobody is doing anything. Two of the men continue to hold the net taut, sweat pouring down their faces. He suddenly realizes that the others have moved away from him, stepping back from the trailer.

“ A ponemos chancla ,” one of the men whispers behind him.

The creature lunges hissing out of the dark, claws outstretched. Ethan cries out in fear and revulsion as it smashes into the net and plunges to the ground at his feet, shrieking and straining and reaching for him. A massive stinger protrudes from between its legs, stabbing repeatedly at the dust. The men surround the thing, hooting over their shotguns and holding the net, while two others rush in with spears. They shout obscenities in multiple languages as they thrust their weapons into the monster, which begins thrashing, keening, almost pitiful.

Finally, the thing lies still, dead. The men continue to stab it with their spears until it becomes a bleeding, featureless pile of road kill.

“ Mono ,” one of Chicanos says to Ethan, drawing his finger across his throat. “Hoppers.”

Ethan shakes his head, trying to clear it of the blind terror he felt when the thing sprang out of the dark. And rage at being used as bait.

“Now you are one of us,” the giant says, grinning. “ Machín .”

“See this?” Ethan says, holding up his finger. “I was already one of you.”

The giant nods, transfixed by the jagged stump, his face paling.

Ethan stares at the thing lying dead on the ground. The men are spitting on it.

“So what happens next?”

“Now we check the cattle for Infection, vato .”

The cattle are led into a special quarantine pen. Two of them are Infected. They are easy to spot: thin, silent, listless, staggering a little when forced to walk. A heifer has one of the monkey things growing out of its side while a steer has two, both on its right flank.

“Hoppers,” the giant says.

The Infected cattle are separated, killed and dragged to a large, smoking pit behind the barn. The heat there is incredible, rising from the scarred ground in blistering waves. Charred legs stick out of the blackened piles of meat, slowing crumbling into ash blowing away in the wind.

There, the dead cattle are burned with all of the others.

Todd lights a candle in his small, sweltering one-room shack and stares at its intense glow. This candle, he thinks, is possibly the only beautiful thing in this entire horrible place.

Candles would be an ideal specialty as a merchant, he thinks. Everybody needs candles. They are simple, small and necessary. The only thing to watch out for is breakage. That and a match shortage. He might have to sell matches, too.

But he is not going to buy and sell candles.

He has an idea he believes will make him rich. He remembers Philip telling him that a good businessman will buy low and sell high. But how do you do this with a barter system?

The answer may be that you acquire lots of something that is almost worthless now and sell it later on when it is almost priceless.

Winter clothing, for example.

A few people sell winter gear in the market, mostly for scrap value and as substitute pillows and stuffers for bedrolls. Coats, hats, scarves, gloves, sweaters.

Almost nobody here believes Infection will last until winter. They have been here for less than two weeks and many of them have no idea what things are like outside. They believe the rumors that the Army is coming to save them. They believe the government propaganda that things are getting better. Things are not getting better. They are getting much, much worse.

Todd knows the people here will be in for a rough winter. If he can build up a big supply of winter clothes, he can trade them for pretty much anything he wants.

“Knock, knock,” a voice says from the doorway.

“Hey, Erin,” he grins. “Come on in. Welcome to my humble abode.”

The girl walks into his shack and looks around.

“Humble is right,” she says. “ Yeesh .” She holds up a plastic baggie. “I scored some weed. It’s not very good, but it gets the job done. You want to get high?”

“Okay, I guess,” Todd says warily, looking at the bag.

Erin sits on the ratty carpet covering the dirt floor and starts rolling a joint.

“I am in dire need of some entertainment,” she says. “My need is dire . You know, before everything went to shit, I was going places. I was one ugly duckling as a kid. And then I got older and I wasn’t. Just like that: Suddenly I was popular. I had like eight hundred friends on Facebook. Then the bug comes along and I’m cut off from the world. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even exist anymore.”

Todd watches her come up for air but she says nothing more, lighting her joint and toking on it carefully until getting enough smoke in her lungs. She hands him the joint and he kisses it, taking little puffs and wondering about the strange, strong smell of it.

“I’m so fucking bored,” Erin says, blowing a long stream of smoke.

“I used to do a lot of wargaming with these college guys,” Todd offers tentatively. “I’m wondering if there are any wargaming clubs around here. You know, Warhammer 40,000 …”

Erin is staring at him curiously. His voice trails off and time appears to slow. He coughs loudly on the smoke.

She suddenly smiles, beckoning the joint to return.

“I don’t know anything about that stuff,” she says. “Can we light another candle?”

“Sure,” he says, relieved.

“Cheer this place right up. How about beer? You got any alcohol?”

“No, but I have some candy if you’re interested.”

“Oh God , yes.”

Chewing on Gummi Bears with an expression approaching bliss, she asks him what things are like on the outside. He tells her about escaping his house during the first day of Infection, surviving on his own, finding the other survivors. Riding in the belly of the Bradley, spilling out to fight and scavenge. The stories are so fantastic that instead of embellishing them he tries to downplay their drama, afraid she will accuse him of making it all up.