Checkpoint 217

1. Hope

Hope felt like a zombie as she slopped another spadeful of rotten fruit into the wheelbarrow, grimacing at the sour-sweet smell. Tell the truth, she’d never expected her life to lead down this particularly nasty path.

Her ill-fitting uniform swamped her and she kept pushing the sleeves up. She was sick of the world, but she'd made up her mind – she would kill herself that night. She’d take a bunch of Emmett’s moonshine and a rifle, go wander off in the woods and never come back. She’d been half scared, half allured by the woods ever since she was posted to the remote checkpoint, but now they offered her sanctuary.

Checkpoint 217 was the last military post before Citadel’s secret mountain lab. The crumbling concrete station squatted on the edge of Highway 22, a crumbling relic of the long-gone oil boom.

At first, it seemed perfect – surrounded by nature, honest work and fresh air. It hadn’t taken long to realise that it wasn't exactly heaven. Pretty much the exact opposite. She watched Jason splitting logs with an axe, throwing the halves onto the pile – fuel for the moonshine still. She was one of those logs being split open. She could still feel his rough hands all over her. His smell. His sounds. Everything was his – the checkpoint, his domain. He put down the axe and smoked a cigarette, staring wistfully at his dead Harley, out of gas and parked up on its kickstand.

When you give a man unchecked authority, look what happens. She’d reported it to the MPs; they did nothing. The system simply turned a blind eye. So she had to bury her true, smiling self way down under layers of hard non-feeling like a dead woman. Her eyes, once bright and clear, were now dull and grey. Her hair was dry and cracking. Her body, once lithe and strong and supple like a dancer’s now shuffled like it was made of pieces of wood nailed together.

A broken human wheeled the barrow full of stinking fruit passed her rapist. Jason looked at her like a master looks at a slave and said, ‘You can fuckin smile once in a while,’ and smacked her on the ass then walked beside her as they returned to the checkpoint.

Smoke rose silently out of the cobbled-together chimney patched into the roof. The sky was golden and the light from the setting sun caught the dust and sap floating in the air. The tall pines were black jagged waves lapping up the flanks of the mountains. Their scree sides climbed into the clouds. It had once looked beautiful. Now it was her prison. Well, she’d made her decision. She smiled sadly, feeling half sorrow, half relief.

2. Jason

Jason fuckin hated this place. Stuck in a valley a thousand miles from the sea. To be so far from the ocean just didn’t feel right, he thought, sucking on his cigarette and staring at the mountains trapping him in.

He could almost smell the salt air, hear the gulls, feel the swell under his feet and the wet nets as they were hauled from the sea. His father at the wheel, steering them over the big shoals.

Not long now until he got that shit back. He spat, figuring out for the hundredth time exactly how many bottles of shine they had to shift before he could buy back his old man’s boat. To some men, the number might have been discouraging, but to Jason, they were oddly comforting.

It’d taken him a while to get back on track ever since his old man died. He’d fucked himself up good in what he liked to call his black-out period. Losing his old man at 16 had been a great excuse to be a fuck up and Jason had milked it for all it was worth.

It was what got him into the army in the first place. And to everyone’s surprise, he’d actually dug the discipline, the drudgery, the day-to-day grind. That’s why he’d been given command of this crucial little checkpoint a couple years before anyone would have predicted.

His station. His responsibility. His way out. Cause where the army succeeded, it also failed. True, it turned his lacklustre attitude into disciplined determination – but not for God, King, Country or any of that bullshit.

Jason fought for himself. Like everyone else in this godforsaken land. Since the pipeline dried up, checkpoints like this ran on bribes and hundred-proof liquor. To him, it was all just a means to an end – the checkpoint, the cash, the corrupt colonels and mafia – all a way back to the boat. And what the hell, he thought, watching Hope struggle with the wheelbarrow, if he could get a little tail while he was at it, why not?

She’d not normally be his type. He liked chicks who liked to have fun. But it sure beat whacking off. It had been a nice turn of events when her little ass showed up. A little reward from the universe for his hard work. Luck? Shit had nothing to do with it. Hard work gets rewarded; everyone knows it.

Things were finally looking up. Emmett had the still up and running again. He was like a dumb animal, thought Jason. He’d do whatever he was ordered. And now a nice piece of ass too. Like a cherry on top. Yep, things were starting to look up. Before the year was out, he’d be fuckin outta these goddamn fuckin mountains and back on his old man’s boat.

His boat, he thought, which made him smile. He laughed and smacked Hope on the ass as she walked by. Then he stiffened as the radio squawked on his belt, crackling with panicked voices – he snatched it to his ear and heard a garbled message he couldn’t believe – the city overrun, hospitals flooded, some sort of outbreak. Botched vaccine. People eating each other…

Then another sound made him cock his head as his animal senses picked up a new noise under the crackling radio. It sounded like a shovel being dragged across the blacktop. He looked back down the road, away from the mountains, across the prairie towards the city. At first he thought the purple sky was smudged with rain clouds, then he realised it was smoke.

3. Veronica

Veronica Thistleton was pissed. The party had been going so well before the security guards rushed in and messed up the whole thing. She’d just introduced Mayor Hadley to Dr. Deterson, Citadel’s chief scientist, and they’d obviously hit it off. The ice sculpture of a DNA strand behind them caught the light beautifully as she prepared to take a photo of the pair of them.

One more to add to the album. For Vee, her phone was her weapon of choice – a digital vault full of dirty secrets – senators, barons, generals, all dancing to her tune. That’s why she’d thrown the party in the first place – not to celebrate the vaccine, but to tighten her chokehold on the country’s elite.

But then, before they could even smile, General fucking Fripp came over, spoiling Veronica’s photo and whole evening in less than a second. And from there, everything had gone from bad to worse.

As soon as she heard the general’s tone of voice, she knew it was serious. And she knew she would have to go with them. The bastards. Vee had forced her way into the escaping limo, using her phone like a shield against the city’s collapse. She hadn’t spent the last 30 years refining her albums, building her collection of corruption, to be palmed off at the first drop of blood. More than a few drops, she had to admit. The limo’s bulletproof windows hadn’t silenced the screams outside as the partygoers watched the city streets turning to slaughter.

Veronica kept adjusting her silver Louis Van Toof suit, clutching her phone like it was a gun. She scowled as the limo slowed to a stop, slewing on its flat tyre a hundred yards from a checkpoint in the ass end of nowhere. General Fripp had sworn the lab wasn’t far past the checkpoint, hidden deep in the mountains. Veronica frowned as the general got out. She slid out behind him.

‘Get back in the vehicle, ma’am,’ said the General.

‘Don’t you ma’am me, you son of a bitch,’ she said.

‘No one leaves the vehicle. We change tyres then get to the lab. That syringe is humanity’s last shot,’ he barked, then whistled, beckoning to the man behind the steering wheel.

The driver, the one who’d saved them, climbed out. Vee appraised him and was surprised. She thought the man who’d gotten them out of the city would be tall, handsome and capable looking, not a scrawny kid with greasy hair and a hunted look in his eyes. He looked slightly ridiculous in his waiter’s uniform – an oversized shirt and waistcoat. She noticed tattoos on both arms where he’d pushed his shirtsleeves up.

‘Where the hell are the guards?’ General Fripp said, looking around, his pistol drawn. He took a couple steps then saw Veronica shadowing him. ‘Don’t make me shoot you, Vee’

‘You know what’ll happen,’ she said, waggling her phone at him. ‘One wrong move and your toast.’ She was prepared to spill dirt on anyone, no matter their rank. But the expression on his face wasn’t what she’d been expecting. He no longer looked intimidated. He stalked towards her, wrenched the phone from her hand and threw it into the bushes.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said with an evil grin. ‘Your worthless now. The whole world is eating itself.’ He and the kid hustled over to the building while Vee went and began picking through the bushes, cursing his name as she tore the pants of her Louis Van Toof.

4. Jason

Jason watched the general throw the chick’s phone into the woods and run towards him through the scope. He was hidden behind a corner of the checkpoint, training his rifle on the limo as more occupants discharged from its guts. It was his job to stop anyone from entering. But now he felt confused. His orders were clear, but there was a four-star general in his crosshairs. He wasn’t about to kill one of the most powerful men in the army. But there were civilians following him. Slick types who looked like they’d been at a cocktail party.

Jason covered them with his rifle, feeling a little uncertain. While he didn’t mind slinging hooch, he hadn’t signed up to kill his own countrymen. This is insane, he thought, watching the group trying to catch up to the general.

There was a young dude in a waistcoat two steps behind. He looked pretty wiry, like a streetrat who could handle himself. Next came a chick in a white lab coat with grey hair and an intense look on her face. Who the fuck were these people and what the fuck were they doing here? A woman wearing a blue power suit came behind, but the women didn’t seem to pose any threat, he thought misogynistically.

As far as he could tell, only the general was armed. He was fifty metres away. Jason centred the crosshairs. Placed his finger on the trigger. Then heard screaming to his right and saw the chick in the silver suit sprinting out of the forest with two kids in scout uniforms on her tail.

Jason knew there was a summer camp in the next valley over but what the fuck? He swung the rifle barrel and watched with horrified amazement as the two boys tackled the lady and used their teeth to bite chunks out of her face and neck.

This was easy, he thought. No question about it. He headshotted one. Covered the second, squeezed off another. He liked it when things were simple.

5. Emmett

In the checkpoint’s dark, musty basement, Emmett was finishing off their latest batch of moonshine. Kneeling in front of the big still, butchered together out of oil drums, a tractor tyre and refrigerator pipes, he opened the spigot and drew out a few inches of clear liquid into an old mason jar.

When the smell started to change, he tossed the liquid towards a drain hole in the concrete floor and drew off another three inches, sniffed it, looked at it, and seemed to approve cause the next moment, he knocked it back. Drew another. Sipped and nodded. This might be his best batch yet.

He started filling the myriad glass bottles of all shapes and sizes, lining them up in rows to be boxed up and shipped to the city. As he worked, he tried to remember the tune to an old jazz standard. The one where the double bass goes ta-tum tum tum. He couldn’t quite dredge it up from the sludge of his mind, so he took another sip. Just a nip. Just the tip. He smiled dopily.

The gangsters in town were going to love this stuff. Make a nice payday for themselves off the back of his work. It was his skill everyone wanted. Any idiot can knock up a still, but it takes someone special to brew up an elixir like this. It swept you away in arms of everlasting grace, like a lover on a bed made of mountains and rivers and deep glistening forests where sunlight shafts in through the trees.

There was gunfire in those woods. No, really, the soldier in his mind said, someone is actually shooting. His free hand felt for his rifle, blindly, as he knocked off one more shot of hootch. He bumped the rifle over and it clattered on the concrete floor.

That psychopath upstairs, he thought, strung so tight, what kind of trouble has he gotten me in now?

6. Mayor Hadley

Mayor Hadley’s face hurt where the bastard soldier had pistol-whipped her but it didn’t hurt quite as bad as her ego. You don’t get to be one of the most powerful women in the country and expect to be manhandled into a 10x10 cell at gunpoint by a dirty drunk holding a rifle. Even from here, he reeked of booze and his eyes were red and bleary. He clanked the door shut, trapping them in the checkpoint’s holding cell.

Dr, Deterson and General Fripp were yelling and struggling against the bars. Mayor Hadley went to the back of the cell and slid down, sitting cross-legged with her back against the cinderblock wall. There wasn’t any point trying to deal with this punk, she thought. Somehow she’d have to get the big skinhead dude off on his own – he was obviously the leader and now he and the chick soldier were nowhere to be seen. Come to think of it, neither was the kid who’d driven the limo.

The drunk soldier was laughing and pointing his rifle at his prisoners. So she was relieved when the big guy showed up, pointed at her and Dr. Deterson and said, ‘You two - move your asses.’

7. Hope

Jason ordered Emmett to take the prisoners outside and siphon gas from the limo. Hope knew why. His Harley was probably his favourite thing in the world after his stupid-ass boat and she reckoned he planned on escaping as soon as he could.

Good. She didn't care. All she wanted to do was go off on her own and have some peace and quiet before the final act. But alas, it wasn't to be. Jason pushed her into the checkpoint's little kitchen and closed and locked the door behind them. The last light of the day filtered in through the greasy yellow window above the sink. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a big fly buzzed in slow loops above their heads.

'Might as well have some fun while the world goes to shit,' said Jason, touching her shoulder and spinning her round.

She flinched, trying to turn away, but there was nowhere to go – together they practically filled the space. And he was bigger than her. He moved, pinning her against the draining board. She felt cold water seep through her shirt.

He bent to kiss her, but she looked away. Without warning, he socked her under the jaw, snapping her head back. He got a fistful of her hair and forced her face up, looking down at her with cold grey eyes. There was no love, no pity or sympathy. Just an animal surveying its prey.

'I'm going to kill you,' he said, smiling an evil smile. His other hand was against her belly, forcing down past her belt. She steadied herself and felt something hard under the palm of her right hand. At the same moment, a shocking realisation dawned on her – she didn't really want to die. She wanted to live.

Without a moment’s thought, she gripped the plastic handle of the kitchen knife and stabbed him in the neck as hard as she could. His eyes widened and he stood there for a second, one hand in her hair, one down her pants – frozen in his final criminal act.

She tugged at the knife but it wouldn't come out. He staggered back, grabbing at the handle, smashing into the door and flailing like a drunk. She ducked, trying to avoid his swinging blows.

He roared, wrenched the knife out. Blood exploded from the wound and she was covered in it. He raised his fist. He was going to stab her. But his head sagged. The whole side of his body was drenched in blood. His face was white. He went down to one knee, looking up at her with a mixture of shock, hatred and – what was it – fear?

She clobbered him in the side of the head with a cast-iron frying pan and he went down, smacking his head off a stainless-steel shelf on the way. He groaned as she stepped on him, unlocked the door and closed it behind her, feeling numb and slightly sick with a metallic taste in her mouth. Her hands were trembling violently. She hadn't noticed the young guy in a waiter's uniform with wide eyes and an open mouth, standing outside the window.

8. Mayor Hadley

Mayor Hadley had never siphoned gas before, but it made her feel kind of badass, until she caught a mouthful of the sour liquid which burned her mouth and throat. She gagged, spluttering, and spat onto the road. Through her tears, she tried to shove the end of the hose into the green jerrycan. The other end of the hose disappeared into the guts of the limo.

‘Keep fucking looking!’ she spluttered at Deterson. ‘Anything?’

The doc had her eyes fixed on the forest, scanning for any more of the… of the… Hadley didn’t want to say it. Perturbations. Corruptions. Fucked-up-ations of their magnificent plan.

She spied the drunken soldier back by the checkpoint, covering them with his rifle while they siphoned the gas. ‘For what?’ she wondered. She'd seen a motorcycle in the parking lot and wondered if that was a part of the plan. The idea of only one or two people escaping this madness made her feel sick. The sound of liquid filling the jerrycan made her feel a little better as she focused on the task at hand.

‘Where are we?’ yelled Dr. Deterson.

‘Half full,’ Mayor Hadley snapped back.

She couldn’t believe what was happening. It felt like a movie. She’d smoked pot once in college and it sort of felt like that. Like she was watching herself from above, detached somehow from the present.

She willed the liquid to pour faster. But she was coming to an awful realisation about this world. It didn’t matter how bad you wanted something – the universe didn’t give a flying fuck about your feelings. She'd had such great plans and they were now pouring out like the gasoline running out of the limo.

Gone were her chances of securing the youngest double mayorship this country had ever seen. Gone were the AG and high commissioner gigs. Gone was her shot at the big one, the only title which meant anything really, the one she’d been dreaming of since she was in kindergarten.

She could practically feel the future slipping through her hands. Unless… There was one giant unless left. Somehow she had to get away from these petty criminals. Somehow she had to escape. Somehow she had to make it to the secret lab in the mountains where they could replicate the only shot at a cure – the syringe in Dr. Deterson’s lab coat. If only she could get the needle, the bike and the general’s thumbprint.

That was a hell of a chance, she thought, as the gas appeared in the mouth of the jerrycan then overflowed, running down the side and soaking the road. But Mayor Hadley had re-found her confidence – she knew she was going to succeed.

There was extra strength in her arms as she hoisted the first jerrycan out of the way, kicked the empty one to the Doc and said, ‘Stop crying, you pussy, and get to work’

9. Dr. Deterson

Dr. Deterson was full of regrets as she took off running and heard the mayor scream behind her – a real blood-curdling shriek. She didn’t care where she was going. She just wanted to get away. Get back to her lab. Wind back the last 10 years and just get back to the good, pure basics. No politics. No money. No bullshit. Just science.

Her feet pounded the tarmac as she saw more and more zombies breaking out of the woods. Not just boy scouts, but all kinds of folks. She regretted not going to the gym or eating right or getting enough sleep as she felt her body, neglected and abused for so long, refusing to do what her mind so ardently willed it.

The white lab coat flapped out behind her and she could feel the syringe bouncing around in the right hip pocket. The syringe holding 5ccs of the only true cure, a fluke mutation from her failed vaccine. It was humanity’s last hope – if only she could reach the lab.

She regretted ever taking the job at Citadel. She should never have left academia. But their lab, the pay and legal team had all been so attractive. She thought she’d been doing the right thing. But even as this thought crossed her mind, she knew it was a lie.

When it really came down to it, she recognised what she’d repressed the whole time. She’d taken the selfish route. All her lofty ideals were just words she liked saying while her actions told a different, much truer story.

The adrenaline dump she was getting helped her see clearer than she had in years. And it broke her heart as she turned off the road, ran down through the ditch and into the cover of the trees.

She regretted not spending more time with her kids. Her home was an icy prison. None of her family seemed to like her much. She was sure it was her fault – because of what she hadn’t done as much as what she had.

The tangled underbrush and crisscrossed logs covered in moss were impossible to run through and Dr. Deterson instantly regretted her deadly mistake.

The sound of snarling humans was on her. She felt a pang, her sharpest regret yet, knowing in her heart of hearts that it was her hubris that had birthed this hell. She hardly felt the scratch as she plunged the needle into her arm, impotently squirting the only dose of cure on the planet into her soon-to-be ripped-off arm.

10. General Fripp

General Fripp slapped a fresh mag into the AK and checked his stocks. Three full mags, a grenade and his pistol with five rounds. He’d used one on the long-haired soldier. Emmerson, Emelio...? Fripp didn’t remember his name. Drunk on duty? A pathetic excuse for a soldier.

Fripp wasn’t going to let a man like that get in his way. His only useful act had been his death, providing Fripp with the distraction he’d needed to keep his dream alive for a few more minutes. While the zombies swarmed over the dead man's body, Fripp retreated down the hallway and into the last room in the basement.

For nearly everyone else, this situation would have been an absolute nightmare. But as the door started coming off its hinges and bloody fingers showed in the gaps, Alexander C. Fripp almost creamed his pants.

There was an evil grin on his face and the fires of hell glowed in his eyes. Ever since he’d been a kid, he’d dreamed of holding an epic Last Stand. Just him, his guns and his guts.

And instantly, he was back in his childhood home with his little fists clenched, his father rushing him like an avalanche. This time he wasn’t too small. This time he was the mountain.

He fired until there weren’t any bullets left. Now it was just him and his mitts. And one last grenade. He leaned against the door, panting, looking at his hands. There were bite marks all over his fingers and the backs of his wrists and forearms. He could already feel changes taking place. He focused on what was behind his hands – something glinted in the light.

About five hundred bottles of clear liquid were lined up in ranks like soldiers on parade. Fripp eyed the still’s oil drums, heard the alcohol vapour hissing.

Hell, he thought, a good way to go. A man’s way to go. A soldier’s. He took a deep slug from one of the bottles, heard the swarm piling through the doorway behind him, pulled the pin and tossed the grenade.

11. Marshall

Marshall tossed the green plastic jerrycan and kickstarted the old Harley into life when the explosion blew the roof off the checkpoint. Burning timbers and bits of clothing rained down like volcanic ash. He could smell alcohol burning. He tied the ripped waistcoat around his face for a mask and gunned the bike, skidding the back tyre around in a half circle so the nose was pointing deeper into the mountains.

Where the hell was he going, what the hell was gonna do when he got there, how in the hell he was gonna survive… He pushed all these unanswerable questions from his mind and tightened his grip.

He’d survived this far, hadn’t he? Always alone, leaving other people to fend for themselves. Until that girl with the beautiful eyes. The killer, he thought. He shook his head and started releasing the clutch when he thought he heard a shout. Looking back, his heart sank and leaped in his chest at the same time.

There she was – the one he’d secretly hoped had survived. In a tattered, blood-stained and singed uniform, she sprint-staggered towards him. About a thousand zombies appearing out of the billowing smoke behind her. Some of them on fire. Others crawled, disfigured and dismembered by the blast.

For his entire life, Marshall had acted in the best interests of one single person. Every decision he made was pre-emptively weighed on a scale – balancing You against Me. He’d disrespected his parents, brothers, bosses and friends on a destructive, almost psychopathic ride through the 21st-century jungle where, or so he’d thought, the individual reigned supreme.

But his heart had just come up against a wall so immovable and uncaring that it rewired his brain almost instantly and he found himself gunning the bike, skidding back around and aiming the front tyre at the girl, wondering, as she leaped on behind him and gripped him tight, if there was even the slimmest chance they’d survive.