Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

I know right away the person is infected. He stands unnaturally stiff, one of his arms hanging as if useless, the other at a strange, crooked angle. He doesn’t move. Then I see another one, shuffling across the road, her jaw hanging open. She walks hunched forward and I see that one of her arms is torn off. Her dress is stained black on one side.

“Damn it,” I say, handing the binoculars back to Pest.

Pest stands up and he has that look that I recognize. He’s thinking. He rubs his chin with his hand like an old man scratching his beard and I get that same spooky feeling I get when I watch him. For a moment, I can’t tell if he’s twelve or forty. “I have to go in,” he says suddenly, looking up to me and snapping me out of it.

“Why?” I ask incredulously. “We can just walk to another place.”

“No, we can’t,” he argues. “We need to get Eric boots. It’s not just the wound he has. He could get another one real easily. What’re we going to do if he hurts himself? Besides,” he continues, “we can’t run out of food. I need to get in there, get what we need, and get back here.” He’s right. We need food and Eric is one mis-step away from being crippled.

“Well, you’re not going alone,” I say.

“There’s no need to risk both of us,” Pest argues. “You stay here and watch Eric and I’ll be right back.” He starts to move away, but I grab his arm. He turns back.

“I said,” I reiterate, my voice low and dangerous, “you’re not going down there alone.”

We glare at each other until his shoulders relax a little and I see that I’ve won. I feel a touch of triumph and then I think about it and I’m not sure I should be happy.

Now I have to go down there.

There are infected people everywhere. Some of them stand with their jaws hanging open without moving. Some of them shuffle randomly around the town. Some of them are sitting in chairs, as if waiting. Their eyes are dark and waving with pale worms. Men, women, even children. There must be a dozen of them here. I guess it must have happened quickly because they don’t look as emaciated as Eric. If it wasn’t for their rigid, unreal walking and their black eyes squirming with worms, I might think they were people, enjoying a sunny, spring day. But they’re not.

Pest and I move quietly through the open gates to the village and slowly up the street. I notice Pest has a gun out and just as quickly notice that it’s Eric’s old gun, in other words, my gun, but I’m not going to say anything now, of course. But it still irritates me.

“That’s my gun,” I hiss at Pest. Immediately I regret it. Didn’t I just tell myself I would wait until a more appropriate time? Didn’t I just finish saying that to myself? It’s Pest’s fault, I think. He makes me act this way.

Pest looks at me, and I could swear he was going to roll his eyes at me. My blood boils just to think of it. But he doesn’t, he stops himself. “I’ll give it back later,” he whispers.

I have three or four smartass responses, but this time I keep them to myself. I just nod. I have other things to worry about, and I breathe in deeply to try to focus on the job at hand. It’s so stupid to be thinking about Pest right now as we move through this village of the dead.

We fall into a pattern. With my knife out and ready, I watch outside while Pest goes into a house to look for supplies. I listen to him while he’s gone. He seems so loud, clomping around in the house, opening drawers, looking under beds. When he comes out, he usually shakes his head. Nothing. Then we move to the next house on the street. Outside the next house, there’s a little girl, no older than I was when the Worm first brought civilization down. While Pest is gone, I study her blonde hair and the raspberry barrette in her hair. She stands soundlessly, the tip of her tongue poking from her mouth. The tongue has been hanging out for so long, it’s dry and swollen black. I can see long, thin, almost transparent worms snaking from her ear. I try to keep an eye out like I’m supposed to, but I keep going back to the little girl.

It’s while Pest is searching the fourth house, when we’re almost in the center of the village, that I see him, a balding old man with a red hunting jacket on. He’s trudging forward, dragging one leg behind him. It looks as if dogs have attacked him. His clothes are all ripped and his jeans are shredded. But what really grabs my attention are his boots: they are perfect for Eric: good, solid, black leather and what looks like steel toes. I turn to call for Pest, but I hear him rummaging around and stop. I don’t want to make any more noise than is necessary. I can do this myself.

I move forward cautiously, and as I get closer, I can see that his leg is nearly torn completely off. It’s only held together by a shard of born and some yellow tendons. Approaching him carefully, I put out my hand and place it on his chest. He comes to a sudden stop. His head picks up a little and he makes a long sound. “Errrrrrrrrrr.” Black blood dribbles from his mouth, pocked by white worms. I shudder and then move behind him.

“Sorry,” I whisper. I push my knee into the back of his one good knee and try to ease him to the ground like I do with Eric, but he just collapses immediately.

“Ahrg! Ahrg!” he cries loudly. Black blood spits from his mouth. He begins to struggle on the ground, scraping the damp earth with his hands. With the loss of his leg, he doesn’t seem to know how to get up. “AAAHRG!” he shouts and then, shuddering, hacks up a massive blob of wriggling worms and black bile. It lands in a pile on the ground in front of him, and the smell of it makes me take a step backwards, putting my hand to my mouth.

Pest bursts from the shack he has been searching and begins to point his gun everywhere, frantically. Then he levels his gun at the infected man and looks at me with confusion. “What’s happening?” he asks.

“AAAHRG!” the man cries, even louder than before.

“His boots!” I say. “I was just getting his boots!”

“You should’ve waited for me!” Pest exclaims, stepping toward the man. He points his gun at him.

“No!” I say. “Don’t shoot him!”

“He’s making too much noise!”

“AAAAHRG!” the man calls out, as if to punctuate his point.

“Oh yeah and a gunshot is real tranquil,” I say to him.

Pest doesn’t respond. He just looks around the village nervously.

I move to the man and crouch down. While the man moves and cries, I unlace his boots and tug them free. Then I tie the laces together and sling the boots over my shoulder. I stand up and watch as the old man struggles on the ground, scraping and howling and shuddering. I wonder if we should shoot him, put him out of his misery. But what’s the difference between killing him and killing Eric? Doesn’t this poor man deserve a chance to get better too? I stare down at him as he cries, fixed by my own thoughts.

I hear it then, a different cry, high-pitched, inhuman. I turn away to see the thing coming down the street. It’s a pig, or it used to be. Now it’s black eyes are covered with wriggling worms, and from its snout pours a black foam that drips maggots. One of its tusks is shattered and broken and the other is black. It’s once-pink hide is now gray and cracked. As it charges toward me, it lets out another inhuman squeal, so loud and terrifying that I stagger backward and trip over the infected old man. I feel myself fall, and, as if time slows, I see Pest leap forward, his gun raised. He begins shooting. I crash backwards, feeling the concussion of the gun shots in my chest.

Everything rolls and spins and blurs. I hear more shots and the pig wailing. I roll backward, and try to come to my feet, but I can’t keep my balance and fall backward, sprawling to a stop. I hear yet another shot as I rise to my feet and spin around, my knife ready to confront the cracked animal.