asks, “Looking for me?”
I decide that my trip home will have to wait. I want to avoid too much suspicion seeing as how I have already killed one of this guy’s friends and I’m not sure how well that will go over at this point.
“Hello,” I say. “I just got into town a little while ago. Silas said you were the man to see in these parts about setting up a homestead.”
He stands back and opens the door all the way for me. I follow him up the stairs and past where the checkout counter sits unoccupied.
“I’m glad you came by. Let me tell you, I’m always glad for new folks when they show up. There’re so few of us as it is. I’m getting ready for lunch; you care to join me?”
I nod, and he leads me through the main reading room with its glass atrium, and tells me to have a seat. He returns shortly with a tray of vegetables and a plastic pitcher of water.
“Nothing too fancy, but I’m glad to share. Let’s eat first, then we can talk business.”
He sits across from me at a table where I have sat several times in years past when I stopped in to read a book or check up on e-mails. I wonder why he is waiting to eat when I notice his bowed head, so I bow mine in turn out of respect and listen to his prayer.
“Thank you, Lord, for these fine vegetables, and, thank you for the company of another soul in this lovely world. Your will be done. Amen.” I have never been very religious, but figure that I can use all the blessings I could find at this point. A free lunch qualified as one.
I grab a tomato slice and produce the jug of beer from Silas’s tavern. Bryce’s eyes light up, and he gets up to grab some glasses. So, we pass a quiet hour or so eating vegetables and sipping beer. He asks the usual questions and I tell him about my life, with a small amount of fiction concerning recent years. He has a pleasant manner to him; getting to know me without seeming like he is prying. It turns out that he used to be an academic working on a research fellowship somewhere in Berkley. After a while, he clears off the tray and I split the last of the beer between us.
He acknowledges by saying, “Thanks for the beer, by the way. Silas really knows his stuff. So, you ready to see the maps?”
I start to nod my head when my eyes fall on his hand holding the cup of beer. There at the base of his thumb stretch awful white scars as if from the bite of a human being. He notices my reaction, and his face darkens if only by a small amount.
“Yes, I got bitten pretty early on. As you can see, I’m totally fine. I don’t know for sure why I didn’t get sick and ‘turn’ like the others, but I have a theory.
“You see, in any population, you have to figure there will be some with a natural immunity to any contagion, no matter how aggressive it is. I thought I might be a random mutant or something, but Silas and one other person survived bites as well. I wish I understood more of the ‘why’ behind it. I wish I still had my old research lab. Perhaps I could figure out some kind of a vaccine, but I don’t think that’s possible now. I guess you could say that the good Lord had plans for me other than being a zombie and leave it at that.”
He sighs and looks up through the glass of the atrium at the turning windmill and continues. “I’m doing what I can, if only in this one place, to make the world better, hoping that some knowledge and civility will survive to spread again one day.”
I am starting to see why folks put their trust in this guy. I haven’t changed my mind about keeping my secrets to myself though. As nice as he seems, I imagine him as the type to frown upon murder no matter the circumstances.
It is almost four by now. It’s obvious that my plans to return back to the farm are
I decide that my trip home will have to wait. I want to avoid too much suspicion seeing as how I have already killed one of this guy’s friends and I’m not sure how well that will go over at this point.
“Hello,” I say. “I just got into town a little while ago. Silas said you were the man to see in these parts about setting up a homestead.”
He stands back and opens the door all the way for me. I follow him up the stairs and past where the checkout counter sits unoccupied.
“I’m glad you came by. Let me tell you, I’m always glad for new folks when they show up. There’re so few of us as it is. I’m getting ready for lunch; you care to join me?”
I nod, and he leads me through the main reading room with its glass atrium, and tells me to have a seat. He returns shortly with a tray of vegetables and a plastic pitcher of water.
“Nothing too fancy, but I’m glad to share. Let’s eat first, then we can talk business.”
He sits across from me at a table where I have sat several times in years past when I stopped in to read a book or check up on e-mails. I wonder why he is waiting to eat when I notice his bowed head, so I bow mine in turn out of respect and listen to his prayer.
“Thank you, Lord, for these fine vegetables, and, thank you for the company of another soul in this lovely world. Your will be done. Amen.” I have never been very religious, but figure that I can use all the blessings I could find at this point. A free lunch qualified as one.
I grab a tomato slice and produce the jug of beer from Silas’s tavern. Bryce’s eyes light up, and he gets up to grab some glasses. So, we pass a quiet hour or so eating vegetables and sipping beer. He asks the usual questions and I tell him about my life, with a small amount of fiction concerning recent years. He has a pleasant manner to him; getting to know me without seeming like he is prying. It turns out that he used to be an academic working on a research fellowship somewhere in Berkley. After a while, he clears off the tray and I split the last of the beer between us.
He acknowledges by saying, “Thanks for the beer, by the way. Silas really knows his stuff. So, you ready to see the maps?”
I start to nod my head when my eyes fall on his hand holding the cup of beer. There at the base of his thumb stretch awful white scars as if from the bite of a human being. He notices my reaction, and his face darkens if only by a small amount.
“Yes, I got bitten pretty early on. As you can see, I’m totally fine. I don’t know for sure why I didn’t get sick and ‘turn’ like the others, but I have a theory.
“You see, in any population, you have to figure there will be some with a natural immunity to any contagion, no matter how aggressive it is. I thought I might be a random mutant or something, but Silas and one other person survived bites as well. I wish I understood more of the ‘why’ behind it. I wish I still had my old research lab. Perhaps I could figure out some kind of a vaccine, but I don’t think that’s possible now. I guess you could say that the good Lord had plans for me other than being a zombie and leave it at that.”
He sighs and looks up through the glass of the atrium at the turning windmill and continues. “I’m doing what I can, if only in this one place, to make the world better, hoping that some knowledge and civility will survive to spread again one day.”
I am starting to see why folks put their trust in this guy. I haven’t changed my mind about keeping my secrets to myself though. As nice as he seems, I imagine him as the type to frown upon murder no matter the circumstances.
It is almost four by now. It’s obvious that my plans to return back to the farm are
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