Zombies - Encounters with the Hungry Dead Part 34

"Suffer, bud," says Deke. Marly glares at him.

Dieter goes to stand beside Leonard. "Maybe we should, like, tell him to get his wife out of the car," he says.

Leonard glances up. "W-w-what if he won't?"

"What if she won't?" adds Bonnie.

"Hey, beggars can't be choosers," Dieter replies. "They'll do it."

Leonard turns back to the mike. "Tell your w-w-wife to step out of the cuh, car," he says.

"You didn't say please," murmurs Marly.

"She-our baby's pretty sick," says the man. "I don't..." He seems indecisive, then turns toward the car and walks from Monitor One to Monitor Two. He opens the pa.s.senger door and leans in. He glances back once or twice as he speaks.

Leonard fiddles with the gain k.n.o.bs.

"-ust do it. No one's going to hurt you... I don't care what the little f.u.c.ker feels like, just do it. And keep your cakehole shut."

The pa.s.senger door opens and a girl gets out. She wears khaki pants, sandals, and a dirty white T-shirt. She is perhaps seventeen years old. She wears a lot of make-up and bright red lipstick. The breeze tugs her tangled hair.

She holds a bundle before her. A little hand protrudes from it, grabs air, finds her breast, clasps.

"All right," says the man. "Now, please-can you spare us some food?" Leonard pulls back Camera One until he's in view again. They watch him gesture expansively. "You have a lot; we just want enough for a few days. Just enough for us to drive across the desert. We're trying to get to California."

Again Leonard glances at the others. "Cuh, Cuh, California? What's there?"

"My brother."

"I'll just bet he is," mutters Grace.

"Hold on a m-m-minute," says Leonard, and kills the mike. He swivels in his chair with a questioning look.

"I don't like it, man," says Dieter.

"Not one bit," says Deke.

"Maybe just some apples, or something..." says Bonnie.

Marly pulls back the bolt of her carbine and begins feeding little missile shapes to the breech.

"Sure," says Deke. "You wanna take it out to 'em?"

"Belling the cat," muses Grace.

"Dieter? Dieter, do you read me?" Bill's voice, a loud whisper.

Dieter lifts the walkie-talkie. "Roger... Bill."

At the console, Leonard suppresses a giggle. Behind him on the monitors, the man, the girl, and the baby await their reply.

"Keep it down; I don't want them to hear me up here. Don't tell them we'll give them any food. Over."

"We were just voting on it," says Dieter.

"It's not a voting issue. They don't get any."

Marly finishes loading her rifle and slaps the bolt in place.

"Just a couple of apples?" asks Bonnie.

Marly glares at her, hating her every milquetoast fiber.

"We have to remember the Ecosphere," continues Bill's tinny voice. "We can't upset the balance. We can't introduce anything new or take anything away. We breach the integrity of the station."

Marly shoulders her rifle and leaves the room.

"Hey, listen, Bill-" begins Dieter, but Bill is still transmitting.

"-ink of what this station represents: we're a self-contained unit. We grew that food ourselves. We live on a day-to-day basis."

"They're not asking for very much," mutters Bonnie. She sits in a chair and stares sullenly at the television monitor.

Dieter thumbs the "send" b.u.t.ton. "We think it's a bad idea for other reasons," he says. "Grace feels that if feed them, they'll just, like, come back for more. Probably they'll tell others, y'know? Uh... over."

"Exactly! And they'll tell others, and we'll be barraged. We'll be like a... a free McDonald's out here."

"Golden arches," says Haiffa solemnly, and steeples her hands. Deke pinches her b.u.t.t.

"We've got a consensus, then?" asks Dieter.

"Tell them no," says the walkie-talkie.

"They don't look too hungry to me," says Deke. "Get 'em outta here."

"Still," mutters Bonnie, "it seems such a shame..." She watches the monitor and does nothing.

"h.e.l.lo? Hey, h.e.l.lo?"

Leonard activates the mike. "Wuh-wuh-we're still here," he says. He seems much more confident now that a decision has been made for him. "Listen, we... we've taken stock of our, um, situation here, and we've talked it over, and examined the, uh, parameters of our food-intake quotients. You have to understand: we're rationed out ourselves. A meal for you means a meal less for someone here." His tone has become warm, congenial. "I'm sure you understand."

"You're saying no?" The beggar seems incredulous.

"I'm saying I'm sorry, but we've a.n.a.lyzed your situation with regard to ours, and we simply can't... accommodate you at this time."

"I don't f.u.c.king believe-you won't give us three days' food?" He keeps glancing around, as if persuasive arguments lie around the asphalt parking lot. "What about my wife?" he asks. "What about our baby?"

"I'm very sorry," says Leonard. He does not sound very sorry. He sounds, in fact, glad to be in a position to refuse something to someone, for a change. Like a hotel manager effusively sympathetic because there's no room at his inn. "But you come here asking a favor," he continues stutterlessly, "and you don't have any right to blame us for declining to grant it."

"Favor?" The man raises the gun. "You want a favor, you G.o.d-"

"Hold it right there, son." Bill's voice, over the speakers.

The young man hesitates.

"Don't do it. I don't want to shoot, but I will." Bill doesn't sound reluctant to shoot. He sounds very excited. "Now, you've asked for help and we can't give it. We would if we could. My advice to you is for you and your wife to get back in your car and head out of here. Don't head for California; head for Phoenix. There's bound to be food there, and it's only a few hours' drive."

"But we just came from-"

"Then head south. But you can't stay here. You got that? We don't have anything for you."

"We'll work for it!"

"There's no work for you here. This is a highly sophisticated station, and it takes a highly trained staff to operate it. There are a lot of us, and we're all armed. We need everything we have, and there isn't enough to go around. I'm sorry, son, but that's life in the big city. I-"

Bill breaks off. The young man and his wife look at something off camera.

"Get back inside!" yells Bill. "Back inside, now! That's an order?

Leonard pans Camera One as close as it can come to the airlock entrance, which is below it and to the right. He shakes his head and gives a low whistle.

"Well," says Dieter. "f.u.c.k me."

5.

The rifle is braced on its strap on her shoulder. Her finger is on the trigger. In the other hand she holds a wicker basket. She's not nervous as she heads toward them-in fact, she's surprised how calm she is. Behind and above her, Billthea.s.shole yells for her to get back inside. She ignores him, but she feels a curious itching between her shoulder blades-probably because Bill is more likely to shoot her than they are.

They don't look as good off camera. A scar splits his eyebrow; another runs the length of his upper arm, bisecting a blue-gray anchor tattooed on his muscular biceps. He's not thin, but he looks undernourished. Vitamin deficiencies.

And the girl looks... well, worn is the only word Marly can think of. Used up. Her eyes are dull and unresponsive.

The hand gropes again from the bundle the girl carries. She presses it protectively to her, and Marly glimpses mottled flesh when the baby tries to suck the girl's nipple through the cotton of her T-shirt.

Marly stops ten feet from the man and sets down the basket. The girl glances down and holds the baby farther from her body.

The man and Marly stare at each other for a moment.

"What's it like?" asks Marly. She inclines her head to indicate the Arizona desert. "Out there."

"Pretty rough," he says.

She nods a few times. "Well..." She indicates the basket and steps back from it. "I'm sorry I can't do more. There's fruit, some vegetables, a little meat. A can of milk for the baby-what's wrong with it?"

"I don't know."

"Well, none of us is a medical doctor," she says. "But you might want to try a pharmacy whatever town you go through next. Or a doctor's office. If it's an infection, try ampicillin. If it's some kind of disease... well, antibiotics shouldn't hurt anyway. But keep her-him?" They don't say; Marly raises an eyebrow and continues. "... on liquids, and get her out of this heat."

Since setting down the basket she's been backing toward the airlock. The man comes forward. Instead of picking up the basket, he glances at the roof of the habitat.

"No one's going to shoot you," says Marly. "Just take it and go. And don't come back."

He lifts the basket and backs toward the El Camino. The girl is already behind the open pa.s.senger door, and now she eases into the cab. He sets the basket next to her, gets in, and shuts the door.

The man studies Marly. He nods, slowly. He starts the car and backs out. He backs up until he is out of the parking lot, then turns around and drives away.

For several minutes Marly watches the settling of the receding rooster tail raised by the car, and then she goes inside.

"Just who the h.e.l.l do you think you are?"

"I'm one-eighth of this station, same as you, and I grew that food as much as anybody else did."

"You defied a direct order-"

"From someone with no authority over me. You know as well as I do that the hierarchy depends on the nature of the crisis."

"We put it to a vote, d.a.m.n you-"

"n.o.body asked for mine. How about you, Grace? Haiffa? Leonard? Bonnie?"

"Did you give any thought whatsoever to the repercussions this might have on us? You've just sent ripples through a very small pond."

"For Christ's sake, Bill, I gave them enough food to last them three days-if they're careful."

"We're not much more than three days from food depletion ourselves. Every change affects all of us. You of all people should know that, Marly. The experiment can't continue if outside-"

"The experiment ended over a year ago, Bill! Along with the rest of civilization! Why don't you f.u.c.king wake up!"

"All the more reason for us to hold out. Maintaining this station is maintaining civilization."

"But not humanity."

"Hey, Marly-the guy's just tryin' to say that, y'know-sometimes hard decisions have to be made. I'm sure he didn't like turning them down. Did you, man?"

"Of course not."

"Oh, Christ! Look, I'll skip a meal a day for three days, to make everything nice and even, all right? Will that make you happy?"

"I thought we should give them some food."

"Yeah, Bonnie. But you didn't do s.h.i.t."