Joseph Talluto - Taking It Back

I nodded.

Trevor continued. “We moved in and checked things out. The dorms were full of zombies, but they couldn’t get out. The main office building had labs like you said and some offices. It was in the offices that we found the information you suspected was there.”

I leaned forward. I had my suspicions about those centers, but kept them to myself, telling only Trevor about them when I sent him to the center. My biggest question was how the state had managed to build the centers without anyone knowing about it and how had they managed to build them so quickly after the outbreak of the virus? To me, that smacked of prior knowledge, which meant the virus could have been contained had we just been warned earlier.

“The center wasn’t for keeping people safe from the zombies. The centers was for the study of zombies. Everyone who came through those gates was not supposed to leave alive. They were supposed to become zombies and be experimented on.”

I kept my face passive, but inside I felt like I had been sucker punched. How the hell could the government do this to their own people? This knowledge created more questions than answers.

“Here’s the thing,” Trevor said. “The federal government never figured the virus to go as out of control as it did. The creation of the centers was to weed out a segment of the population deemed expendable, those people without any usable skills or any inclination to self-preservation. They would be the ones to run for a shelter because they lacked the wherewithal to manage on their own.

“The purpose was to understand the virus, then try to understand the zombie. What motivated it, why did it eat humans, what were its weaknesses?” Trevor sounded older, like the knowledge aged him.

“When the centers lost contact with their federal masters after the central government fell to the virus, the centers just shut down, and most of the staff left. The commander you found had a sense of guilt and shot himself for what he had participated in.” Trevor finished with a sigh. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

I doubted anything could have made me more disgusted than what I already heard, but I had a feeling Trevor was about to prove me wrong. “What was the worst?”

Trevor held up binder that he had been holding by the side of the chair. It was plain grey with red lettering that read “Operation Zero Friday”. “If the government had been able to contain the virus, the plan was to use the zombies to control the rest of the population into compliance. Remember the line the President’s Chief of Staff liked to use? ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste?’ They wanted to use this crisis to solidify absolute control over not only the United States, but the rest of the world as well.”

I shook my head. “A power play. Billions dead for a power play. Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

Trevor stood up to drink some water. “The last of the reports talked about a regrouping of military forces, so it’s a safe bet they’re still out there. A side note talked about possibly a safe haven for those in Washington, but nothing specific.”

I stood up and offered my hand to Trevor. “Good work. You’re a hell of a fighter and a good friend. This community is grateful and so am I.”

Trevor smiled as he shook my hand. “Thanks. Coming from you that means a lot.”

“We’ll let the rest of the community know as soon as possible. Some of them have family that went to those centers and they deserve to know the truth.” I headed for the door. Part of me was disgusted by what our so-called elected leaders had tried to do and another part was glad they had failed.

I left Trevor’s house and walked right into a zombie. We collided together and I managed to catch myself on the door of the house and draw my gun as the Z fell backwards and onto its back. It scrambled up faster than I had ever seen a zombie move, then raised its hands over its head as it yelled, “Don’t shoot!”

I stared hard for a second, not believing I had just heard a zombie speak, then lowered my gun. It was Carl Witry, our acting coach and resident zombie impersonator. “Jesus, Carl! You’re gonna get shot walking around dressed like that!”

Carl wiped off his rags. “Tell me about it. You’re the fifth person to throw down on me since I came to get Trevor.”

“What’s up?” I asked, holstering my SIG.

“Nothing. Trevor is late for training and Nate sent me to come get him.” Carl was upright again and none the worse for wear.

“Alright, I’ll be at home if anyone needs me.”

“Righty-ho,” Carl said as he knocked on Trevor’s door. As I walked away, I heard, “Don’t shoot!” coming from Trevor’s house once again. I laughed and hoped Carl would survive his errand.

Back at home, Sarah and Jake were waiting for me. I laid down on the floor and let Jake crawl on me while I played Daddy monster and made him giggle. I told Sarah what Trevor had told me and she just shook her head.

“You know, when you think about it, what we have here is pretty much the best we could hope for. If the government had won, we’d be virtual prisoners of the state, forced into slavery, threatened with the possibility of being turned into a zombie or torn apart by them if we resisted,” Sarah said.

“That’s what I was thinking, too. As rough as life has become, all it would have taken for it to get rougher would have been the government getting involved,” I said, tickling Jake on his tummy, eliciting a squeak of protest.

“Change of subject,” Sarah said.

“Go for it.”

“When are we moving?” she asked.

I smiled. “Been talking to Rebecca, have you?”

“Can’t help it. We’re women. Besides, Charlie is much less resistant to Rebecca’s charms than you are to mine.” Sarah slid down on the floor.

“Guess you’ll have to just work harder,” I said, wiggling my nose into Jake’s.

“Answer the question,” Sarah said, taking a turn tickling Jake.

“Probably at the end of the week. Charlie and I have to find another boat so we don’t deprive the community of one and we have to make sure we have everything packed and ready to go. I want to be firmly established before the fall comes and I want to make sure we are able to survive the winter. Plus, Charlie and I need to secure the area as much as we can.”

“Anyone else coming along?”

“Not that I know of.” I had spoken to very few people about our plans as I wanted to avoid any conflicts, but I was starting to feel a bit crowded in our current community. I know Charlie felt the same way, which was why he had asked to come with to our new home.

I broke the news at the next council meeting. I didn’t expect a lot of resistance, but there was a lot of ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Did someone offend you?’ ‘We still need you.” and so on.

“I appreciate the sentiments, I really do,” I said. “But in a strange way, I feel like my work here is finished and I need to move on, maybe help another community get things together. I will not fade from the scene entirely, as Nate knows, we have a final campaign scheduled for this coming winter and I will definitely be here for the fun. For right now, though, I am moving on.”

We finished the meeting with a few hours worth of planning for the upcoming offensive and as I left I felt the familiar pang of regret when I made a big decision. Was it the right thing to do, was it right for Jacob, etc. In the end, though, my gut told me it was time to move on. I had done what I had set out to do here, now I needed to see if I could do for myself.

The week passed quickly with a lot of well wishes from most of the community. We had a lot of supplies to load and I was surprised at the amount of stuff we managed to accumulate. It was a far cry from the beginning of my journey when I had packed up my belongings and my son on a bike and headed out into the zombie world.