Free Sixteen Small Deaths by Christopher J. Dwyer

orange dust
    It’s almost as if only the strong survived. Only those who were willing to become monsters stepped outside of the boundaries of decency and planted their teeth into the soft flesh of a human. For some, it was just too hard. Even I found myself sitting in dark days during those years. It was only when I learned to stash, learned to make the right connections did I find myself fed, satisfied, and, until now…
safe.
    Cale was well-connected within the East Coast societies. He knew the leaders of local clans. He knew how to get the right quantities of fuel without causing a stir or raising attention. And, most importantly of all, he hooked me up with Mickey, who kept me well-fed and well-paid with a gig at the December Club.
    It’s very rare now that I sniff out a fellow infected soul in the public realm. We’re an endangered species, whittled down to the smallest number in decades. If you’re not like me and you live inthe rural areas of the country, I can’t imagine you’d be anything but fucked. Only the powerful ones survived the worst, and now the few of us left have to deal with something even more violent than starving the virus.
    Everything before this week was perfect. I lived day-to-day with the same routine, the same bittersweet emotion of eternal life. I stay off the radar. My driver’s license is under a different name. I don’t have credit cards or bank accounts. I deal in cash and blood. I don’t have many friends. It’s a simple life, but it’s a life I’ve been used to for so long. And now that all seems to be crashing down around me. For once, I’m not worried about my next meal. For once, I’m not worried about finding a woman who I can share my terrible secret with.
    Because now, all I’m worried about is
death.
    #
    Davey switches the radio station with a quick twirl of his perfectly-manicured fingers. Hard rock, jazz, then silence. He can’t settle on a station. He finally puts his hand back on the steering wheel and we continue into the night. We reach the Ink Station and Cale’s already standing on its doorstep, plum cherry tip of a cigarette dangling from his lips. Davey rolls down the window and smiles. “Two hours and we’re not stopping.” Cale nods and opens the back door, tosses his duffel bag between mine and Davey’s and hops into the truck with a sigh. He looks back at the trail of fog and exhaust, as if the tattoo shop is his home.
    I lean against the passenger’s side window, cool glass pressing into my cheeks. Before long, I’m dreaming of the life I lived before all of this.
    #
    Night burns into a smoldering trail of haze and moonlight. Iwake to Davey’s voice. “We’re here, partner.”
    I’m out the truck and surrounded by the woods, far different from the world two hours ago. Cale tosses my duffel bag at me and I catch it with both arms. He looks around and shakes his head. “Thirty years and it comes down to this,” he says. “Thirty goddamn years.”
    I can’t do anything but look away, listen to the speckles of rural nature tickle the innermost portions of my mind. It’s beautiful up here and dangerous at the same time. Only a few yards from us are the booming echoes of misplaced laughter and other voices. Drips and drabbles of other clans, souls lost and wandered into a place where we all might die. Davey motions for us to follow him up to a bleak and gray building that’s oddly out of place up here in the woods.
    “This place was once used to store my group’s supply,” he says, dragging his bag over a hefty shoulder. “For years I’d make trips up here with my guys and fill up. Local government thought it was a waste management facility. Never would have thought we’d have to use this place for a safe haven.”
    The voices grow louder as we approach the entrance, some of them familiar, most of them new. Davey holds the door open for us and we’re greeted with a dozen different sets of fiery eyes. These are the hunted brethren, the