Curtis Alexander’s Daily Routine
There is no end to your journey when the truth is the goal, thought Curtis, sawing off the last fucker’s head and throwing it on the pile. Must be 40, 50 in a single day. He peeled off his latex gloves. Another 40, 50 tomorrow. And the next day and the next, all the way until… When?
It’d been 4 years since the outbreak: Patient Zero stumbling panic-stricken out of a cave in the jungle having been bitten by something in the dark. Or was it someone? With their iron grip, jaws and cheekbones, it had felt awfully like a human.
Then Patients One, Two, and Three in hospital beds, out of hospital beds, flipping over hospital beds as they leapt for the exits, tearing down cleaning staff and neurosurgeons alike in a terrifying wave that swept outwards as it carried across the city, country and world.
And what remained? Curtis swung his leg over his e-bike. Started off silently down the rubble strewn street in burnt-out suburbia. Smouldering piles where family homes once stood. A high school all shot up and mortared – great chunks bitten out of the 2-storey building. The army had tried. But there were just too damn many. The only way forward was on your own. Light. Agile. Solo. Like a snow leopard in the mountains, he thought, zipping up a highway ramp and pointing his bike south towards the city. Never sleep in the same place twice. Never take more than you can carry at a dead sprint. Never give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Shoot first, cut off their head, and ask questions never. He’d had too many close calls to second guess his brutal methods anymore. Man, woman, child – his hands performed the same necessary tasks. Mercenary tasks. In a weird self-preservation kind of way, it helped if he thought of it as work. Like a job that had to be done. Didn’t matter if you liked it or not. Might as well get on with it.
Over time, he’d developed plenty of mental tricks and gymnastics to navigate this New Normal. With repetition, he’d even learned to take pride in his work. There was a right way and a wrong way to eliminate a threat. Cutting off a human head turned out to be a skill just like anything else. Each one offered an opportunity to compete with his previous self. Could he do it better, cleaner, quicker, and with more panache than the last 10,000 times? He smiled as he crested the 11th Street bridge and the downtown spread out before him. The saw-toothed skyscrapers, some caught in half collapse supported by their neighbour, reminded him of windfalls in the forest.
It occurred to him just how much stuff would have blown his mind even 4 or 5 years ago. For a few seconds, not too long or else he’d get real down, he let himself feel the ache, the deep human desire to have someone to share it with.
