The Story of 54

"Liv, where are you now?"
Keeping the shotgun levelled at the next doorway with my right hand, I used my left to depress the button on the headset: "I'm somewhere in the basement. The upper floors were empty—looked looted—but these big places often have fallout bunkers."
"All right," sighed Ainsley, "but I don't know how much longer we can sit around out here without attracting attention. Be quick."

I was always quick. But then, I always got the job done, and these jobs took time. One missed room, one dark corner unchecked could spell disaster for the search team. I moved methodically through the building, checking anything and anywhere large enough to conceal a human body. Rubble and overturned furniture made the job that much slower, and this building was troublesome to begin with.

At first glance I had thought it was an up-class hotel. The decor, though rotten as usual, was modern and minimalist, maintaining a hint of its former sparkle even in these dark days. But as I explored more hallways, more rooms, I found clutter. Knick-knacks and keepsakes: this was somebody's house. Or mansion, rather. I glanced over the curiosities. One room I had peeked into was entirely given over to  several dusty string instruments, and one very dusty piano. I wondered how much it would all fetch at auction. How much it would fetch if there was anybody left to buy it, at least.

The next room along turned out to be a bathroom. It was fairly lacklustre, probably used by servants or cleaners, but like an ugly oyster it held a pearl: there was a medicine cabinet. I quickly traced my torch over the rest of the room before taking a closer look. Paracetamol, Ibuprophen and one or two other analgesics. Also Lemsip, a first aid kit, and a promising looking bottle that turned out to be ear medicine for a dog. Still, it was worth the search team's attention. I took the can of fluorescent yellow spray-paint from my belt and closed the cupboard door. Like a bad horror movie, the reflection of a lurking figure appeared behind me in the mirror.

I spun around, catching a glimpse of outstretched hands, gaping jaws and peeling skin for just a moment before the shotgun splattered them across the bathroom tiles. I tried the tap to rinse the gore from my face. No water. There hadn't been any for some time. Quickly leaving the room, I closed the door. Replacing the yellow paint in its pocket, I took out the red and marked a large cross on the door.

Plague.

People have always searched for the miracle cure for ageing. That magic pill that meant you never had to die. Two years ago, they found it.

I remembered my old job. "My desk job" I called it, though it was anything but. I was built to work in environments deemed too hostile for humans. I suppose not much has changed, really. The hazard is the same, even if it's not in its Petri dish any more. We were still perfecting it when an industrial spy stole a sample. It was still dangerous when the drug dealers started producing it. It was still infectious when they sold it: it spread at a kiss, an embrace...a bite.

The next door to check was down a long flight of steps. It was a heavy, steel affair with four massive bolts to hold it closed. It would have taken the search team a full week to cut through it: but it was already ajar. Keeping the shotgun trained on the crack, I set my shoulder against the metal and pushed. I didn't need my torch. The other side of the door was already dimly illuminated: tritium lights. This was definitely a shelter.

On the other side, I was dismayed to find that it was just an ante-chamber. There was another identical door just at the other end of this small room. Still, there were some supplies and equipment in here: exactly what we needed. Even if we couldn't open the second door, the search would have been worthwhile. Still, I had to do the usual checks. I remembered the reports, and what Ainsley had said: "The infected become unthinking, aggressive, and claustrophilic." The latter quality was the most troublesome. Some said that they crawled into small spaces to die, only to find that they could not. Others guessed that it was an adaptation of the infection: a ploy to better find it new hosts and resist eradication. In any case, this was one monster that did hide under beds.

I took a look around the room. Quietly. I've always been a fast learner, and after two years working so closely with the infected, I began to see like them, think like them. Sometimes I swore I could even hear their breathing. So gentle, so peaceful, yet so wrong. It was not a warm sigh like a real person's, but a faint death rattle, cold against my face even as they fought for flesh that was not there. It was not a question of if there was one in here, but where.

Satisfied that there was nothing lurking in the open, I set my attention back where it had first fallen upon entering: the steel storage cupboard. About the height of a person, and slightly wider, it had no windows. It was exactly the sort of place they chose to hide and, the tell-tale sign, a padlock on the floor nearby. A healthy human would perhaps have grown lazy, left it unlocked for convenience, but would have let the lock gather dust on top of the cupboard, not on the floor. That meant that either they had met some misfortune while attending to it, or had opened it while in the first stages of infection, perhaps looking for medicine. In any case, something waited in that steel coffin.

I took up a place to the left of the door, bracing my right knee against it to stop it swinging open violently. This meant that I had to manage the shotgun with my left hand while I opened the door with my right: this was no problem. Then, I teased the door open just a chink.

She was inside, slumped awkwardly with her knees and head pressed against one wall, her back and feet against the other, like a guard stood at attention for far too long. If it weren't for the telltale traces of necrosis, she might have been sleeping. I eased the door open a little further and pushed the muzzle of the shotgun through the gap. In doing so, I allowed it to chime against the door ever so faintly. All hell broke loose.

She needed no time to think, but simply reacted to my presence. Even in her apparent slumber, she had always been ready to burst out from behind that steel door and fall on whoever was unlucky enough to find themselves on the other side of it. Fortunately, it was only me.

Though I had braced the door half-shut to begin with, her phenomenal strength forced it open further than I had hoped. Worse still, I had fired the first shot in the confusion—apparently to little effect—and the barrel had been dragged inwards during the struggle. Though not prone to infection, I was not as strong as a human, and certainly far weaker than my adversary. Ignoring what she could do to me personally, if she escaped from the cupboard our struggle would risk contaminating the entire cache. I could not allow that.

Dragging the gun back, I scattered two or three shots into the cupboard, neglecting to aim. At least one must have found its mark, as she slumped backwards. Not waiting to see if she would recover, I slammed the door shut and picked up the padlock, clicking it into place. With any luck, the key was in her possession: it would be safest on the inside. Quickly, I sealed the door with duct tape and sprayed a large red cross across its face. There was a click from behind me as the inner door of the bunker opened. My mind raced: there was another one in here. I turned.

A small figure—very small—was silhouetted by the brighter glare of the inner room. I hesitated to shoot, not because this one was a child, but because it was standing between me and the majority of the stockpile. I could not risk ruining the goods. This one was no real threat to me: it would be better to lure it to somewhere more remote to deal with.

"Was it you that knocked?" The child asked, sleepily.
I froze—not that I was moving to begin with—this one was uninfected. A survivor. That was worth all the canned soup in this entire mansion.
"Yes," I smiled politely, "I'm with the police. Is your mummy or daddy in?"
"They went outside."
"When did they go outside?"
"A long time ago."
"How long? Minutes, hours or days?
"Months." She yawned, "Have you seen them?"
The man in the bathroom. The woman in the cupboard. "I think they're at the police station. Would you like to come with me?"
"They told me never to come out."
"That doesn't matter if you're with the police. See my uniform?" I tugged at my worn military fatigues.
"You're covered in blood."
"I had a nosebleed." I took a small bottle of hand sanitizer from my bag and applied it carefully. "Come along," I said, reaching out to her.

She scrutinised the serial number printed on the back of my hand. "L I V." She read the numerals out as a word, "is that your name?"
"Yes," I replied, "What's yours?"
"Clare."
"Ok, Clare," I said, "Shall we go outside now?"

After we made our way carefully back through the house, Ainsley was waiting anxiously outside the gates. "What took you so long?" He growled, before almost inhaling his cigar. We hadn't found a survivor for the best part of a year.
"Please excuse me," I said to Clare, "I have to talk to my colleague."
"Where was she?" Ainsley whispered, still in shock.
"Fallout bunker. It's in the basement, but I haven't checked it for myself. It should be clear: the rest is."
"Was there anybody else with her?"
"They're dead. I told her we were the police."
"I didn't think you could lie."
"You're thinking of George Washington."


Ainsley thought for a moment. "What are we supposed to do with her?"
"Talk to her. Find out if she knows anything useful, and if there's anything we can get for her."
"Can't you do it? I'm no good with kids."
"I'm a biohazard. I'm pretty sure she's better off with you for now." I left him standing there awkwardly. Though Ainsley gave orders, he was never one to take initiative. Right now I needed a bath.

I looped the chain once around my hand and clung on while the crane lowered me into the boiling vat of bleach on the back of the truck. After a minute or so, it winched me back out. Graham was on hand with a fire hose to spray off the excess and stop me from overheating. The main bits of my kit were already being sterilised: the rest would be incinerated and replaced.

Clare would be fine, once we took her back to the settlement. There were any number of people there who could look after her, or maybe Mark and Anne would take her in and she could stay with us. It wasn't all that dangerous, really. I wandered back to where I had left Ainsley, but he wasn't there. I checked all the nearby vehicles, and the tents, but there was no sign of him.
"Liv!" He shouted, breathlessly, running up to me, "Liv, I've lost Clare! She was just there one minute and gone the next. If she ran out into the city...I know there aren't as many as there used to be but still...or what if one of the sentries shoots her?"
I somehow couldn't imagine her running off down some unfamiliar street. "It's far more likely she's just gone back into the house..." I began, but then something struck me. "Radio the search team. Tell them she might be in there." The sentries were a danger, yes, but out in the open they had the time to tell the difference between a healthy child and a walking carcass. The search team, on the other hand, were working in a cramped, dark space.

I darted back into the house and had picked my way halfway through to the basement stairs when I realised: Clare hadn't gone that way. Turning around, I headed back to the hall and up the steps.

The room was, by this stage, much like all the others. There was a wooden bed with a mildewy mattress, and a lot of debris on the floor, but it somehow stood out. A lot of the clutter was plastic, and still shone brightly despite the decay. Also, there was no sign of squatters: a good indication that this had once been a child's room. I had recognised it as such on my first visit. But Clare wasn't here.

There was a wardrobe in one corner. I reached for the handle, hoping as though trapped in some strange, inverted reality that something was lurking inside. With even greater trepidation than usual, I opened the door.
Clare stared up at me. She wasn't crying, but her voice trembled. "I want to go home."
"Everybody does." I said, "But we have to work to get there. That's just the way it is."

She reached up to be carried, and I took her back to the camp. She was asleep by the time we got there. I let her sleep in one of the vans, taking the drivers' seat myself. It wasn't fair to lie to her, but I knew then that I couldn't tell her what I'd done. If she, like Ainsley or Graham, had learned to see me as nothing more than a tool, it would not be half the problem it was now. As a machine, I could be hated, despised—destroyed, even—but she saw me as a person now. Her parents had left her because it was the best thing they could have done. But abandoned by one family, I could not let her be revolted by the other. Her parents had given their lives, and because of that, I had to sacrifice their story.