Joe Muhammad's 1st Interview

WENATCHEE, WASHINGTON

 [Joe Muhammad’s smile is as broad as his shoulders. While his day job
is as the owner of the town’s bicycle repair shop, his spare time is
spent sculpting molten metal into exquisite works of art. He is, no
doubt, most famous for the bronze statue on the mall in Washington,
D.C., the Neighborhood Security Memorial of two standing citizens, and
one seated in a wheelchair.]

 The recruiter was clearly nervous. She tried to talk me out of it. Had I
 spoken to the NRA representative first? Did I know about all the other
essential war work? I didn’t understand at first; I already had a job at
 the recycling plant. That was the point of Neighborhood Security Teams,
 right? It was a part-time, volunteer service for when you were home
from work. I tried explaining this to her. Maybe there was something I
wasn’t getting. As she tried some other half-hearted, half-assed
excuses, I saw her eyes flick to my chair.

 [Joe is disabled.]

 Can you believe that? Here we were with mass extinction knocking on the
 door, and she’s trying to be politically correct? I laughed. I laughed
right in her face. What, did she think I just showed up without knowing
what was expected of me? Didn’t this dumb bitch read her own security
manual? Well, I’d read it. The whole point of the NST program was to
patrol your own neighborhood, walking, or, in my case, rolling down the
sidewalk, stopping to check each house. If, for some reason, you had to
go inside, at least two members were always supposed to wait out in the
street. [Motions to himself.] Hell-o! And what did she think we were
facing anyway? It’s not like we had to chase them over fences and across
 backyards. They came to us. And if and when they did so, let’s just
say, for the sake of argument, there was more than we could handle?
Shit, if I couldn’t roll myself faster than a walking zombie, how could I
 have lasted this long? I stated my case very clearly and calmly, and I
even challenged her to present a scenario in which my physical state
could be an impediment. She couldn’t. There was some mumbling about
having to check with her CO, maybe I could come back tomorrow. I
refused, told her she could call her CO, and his CO and everyone right
up to the Bear 1 himself, but I wasn’t moving until I got my orange
vest. I yelled so loud everyone in the room could hear. All eyes turned
to me, then to her. That did it. I got my vest and was out of there
faster than anyone else that day.

 Like I said, Neighborhood Security literally means patrolling the
neighborhood. It’s a quasi-military outfit; we attended lectures and
training courses. There were designated leaders and fixed regulations,
but you never had to salute or call people “sir” or shit like that.
Armament was pretty nonregulation as well. Mostly hand-to-hand
jobs—hatchets, bats, a few crowbars and machetes—we didn’t have Lobos
yet. At least three people in your team had to have guns. I carried an
AMT Lightning, this little semiauto .22-caliber carbine. It had no kick
so I could shoot without having to lock down my wheels. Good gun,
especially when ammo became standardized and reloads were still
available.

 Teams changed depending on your schedule. It was pretty chaotic back
then, DeStRes reorganizing everything. Night shift was always tough. You
 forget how dark the night really is without streetlights. There were
barely any houselights, too. People went to bed pretty early back then,
usually when it got dark, so except for a few candles or if someone had a
 license for a generator, like if they were doing essential war work
from home, the houses were pitch-black. You didn’t even have the moon or
 the stars anymore, too much crap in the atmosphere. We patrolled with
flashlights, basic civilian store-bought models; we still had batteries
then, with red cellophane on the end to protect our night vision. We’d
stop at each house, knock, ask whoever was on watch if everything was
okay. The early months were a little unnerving because of the
resettlement program. So many people were coming out of the camps that
each day you might get at least a dozen new neighbors, or even
housemates.

 I never realized how good we had it before the war, tucked away in my
little Stepford suburbistan. Did I really need a
three-thousand-square-foot house, three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen,
living room, den, and home office? I’d lived alone for years and
suddenly I had a family from Alabama, six of them, just show up at my
door one day with a letter from the Department of Housing. It’s
unnerving at first, but you get used to it quickly. I didn’t mind the
Shannons, that was the family’s name. We got along pretty well, and I
always slept better with someone standing watch. That was one of the new
 rules for people at home. Someone had to be the designated night
watchman. We had all their names on a list to make sure they weren’t
squatters and looters. We’d check their ID, their face, ask them if
everything was all quiet. They usually said yes, or maybe reported some
noise we’d have to check out. By the second year, when the refugees
stopped coming and everyone got to know each other, we didn’t bother
with lists and IDs anymore. Everything was calmer then. That first year,
 when the cops were still re-forming and the safe zones weren’t
completely pacified…

 [Shivers for dramatic effect.]

 There were still a lot of deserted houses, shot up or broken into or
just abandoned with the doors left wide open. We’d put police tape
across all doorways and windows. If any of them were found snapped, that
 could mean a zombie was in the house. That happened a couple of times.
I’d wait outside, rifle ready. Sometimes you’d hear shouts, sometimes
shots. Sometimes, you’d just hear a moan, scuffling, then one of your
teammates would come out with a bloody hand weapon and a severed head. I
 had to put a few down myself. Sometimes, when the team was inside, and I
 was watching the street, I’d hear a noise, a shuffling, a rasping,
something dragging itself through the bushes. I’d hit it with the light,
 call for backup, then take it down.

 One time I almost got tagged. We were clearing a two-story job: four
bed, four bath, partially collapsed from where someone had driven a Jeep
 Liberty through the living room window. My partner asked if it was cool
 to take a powder break. I let her go behind the bushes. My bad. I was
too distracted, too concerned with what was going on inside the house. I
 didn’t notice what was behind me. Suddenly there was this tug on my
chair. I tried to turn, but something had the right wheel. I twisted,
brought my light around. It was a “dragger,” the kind that’s lost its
legs. It snarled up at me from the asphalt, trying to climb over the
wheel. The chair saved my life. It gave me the second and a half I
needed to bring my carbine around. If I’d been standing, it might have
grabbed my ankle, maybe even taken a chunk. That was the last time I
slacked off at my job.

 Zombies weren’t the only problem we had to deal with back then. There
were looters, not so much hardened criminals as just people who needed
stuff to survive. Same with squatters; both cases usually ended well.
We’d just invite them home, give them what they needed, take care of
them until the housing folks could step in.

 There were some real looters, though, professional bad guys. That was the only time I got hurt.

 [He pulls down his shirt, exposing a circular scar the size of a prewar dime.]

 Nine millimeter, right through the shoulder. My team chased him out of
the house. I ordered him to halt. That was the only time I ever killed
someone, thank God. When the new laws came in, conventional crime pretty
 much dried up altogether.

 Then there were the ferals, you know, the homeless kids who’d lost
their parents. We’d find them curled up in basements, in closets, under
beds. A lot of them had walked from as far away as back east. They were
in bad shape, all malnourished and sickly. A lot of times they’d run.
Those were the only times I felt bad, you know, that I couldn’t chase
them. Someone else would go, a lot of times they’d catch up, but not
always.

 The biggest problem were quislings.

 Quislings?

 Yeah, you know, the people that went nutballs and started acting like zombies.

 Could you elaborate?

 Well, I’m not a shrink, so I don’t know all the tech terms.

 That’s all right.

 Well, as I understand it, there’s a type of person who just can’t deal
with a fight-or-die situation. They’re always drawn to what they’re
afraid of. Instead of resisting it, they want to please it, join it, try
 to be like it. I guess that happens in kidnap situations, you know,
like a Patty Hearst/ Stockholm Syndrome–type, or, like in regular war,
when people who are invaded sign up for the enemy’s army. Collaborators,
 sometimes even more die-hard than the people they’re trying to mimic,
like those French fascists who were some of Hitler’s last troops. Maybe
that’s why we call them quislings, like it’s a French word or something.
 2

 But you couldn’t do it in this war. You couldn’t just throw up your
hands and say, “Hey, don’t kill me, I’m on your side.” There was no gray
 area in this fight, no in between. I guess some people just couldn’t
accept that. It put them right over the edge. They started moving like
zombies, sounding like them, even attacking and trying to eat other
people. That’s how we found our first one. He was a male adult,
midthirties. Dirty, dazed, shuffling down the sidewalk. We thought he
was just in Z-shock, until he bit one of our guys in the arm. That was a
 horrible few seconds. I dropped the Q with a head shot then turned to
check on my buddy. He was crumpled on the curb, swearing, crying,
staring at the gash in his forearm. This was a death sentence and he
knew it. He was ready to do himself until we discovered that the guy I
shot had bright red blood pouring from his head. When we checked his
flesh we found he was still warm! You should have seen our buddy lose
it. It’s not every day you get a reprieve from the big governor in the
sky. Ironically, he almost died anyway. The bastard had so much bacteria
 in his mouth that it caused a near fatal staph infection.

 We thought maybe we stumbled onto some new discovery but it turned out
it’d been happening for a while. The CDC was just about to go public.
They even sent an expert up from Oakland to brief us on what to do if we
 encountered more of them. It blew our minds. Did you know that
quislings were the reason some people used to think they were immune?
They were also the reason all those bullshit wonder drugs got so much
hype. Think about it. Someone’s on Phalanx, gets bit but survives. What
else is he going to think? He probably wouldn’t know there was even such
 a thing as quislings. They’re just as hostile as regular zombies and in
 some cases even more dangerous.

 How so?

 Well, for one thing, they didn’t freeze. I mean, yeah, they would if
they were exposed over time, but in moderate cold, if they’d gone under
while wearing warm clothes, they’d be fine. They also got stronger from
the people they ate. Not like zombies. They could maintain over time.

 But you could kill them more easily.

 Yes and no. You didn’t have to hit them in head; you could take out the
 lungs, the heart, hit them anywhere, and eventually they’d bleed to
death. But if you didn’t stop them with one shot, they’d just keep
coming until they died.

 They don’t feel pain?

 Hell no. It’s that whole mind-over-matter thing, being so focused
you’re able to suppress relays to the brain and all that. You should
really talk to an expert.

 Please continue.

 Okay, well, that’s why we could never talk them down. There was nothing
 left to talk to. These people were zombies, maybe not physically, but
mentally you could not tell the difference. Even physically it might be
hard, if they were dirty enough, bloody enough, diseased enough. Zombies
 don’t really smell that bad, not individually and not if they’re fresh.
 How do you tell one of these from a mimic with a whopping dose of
gangrene? You couldn’t. It’s not like the military would let us have
sniffer dogs or anything. You had to use the eye test.

 Ghouls don’t blink, I don’t know why. Maybe because they use their
senses equally, their brains don’t value sight as much. Maybe because
they don’t have as much bodily fluid they can’t keep using it to coat
the eyes. Who knows, but they don’t blink and quislings do. That’s how
you spotted them; back up a few paces, and wait a few seconds. Darkness
was easier, you just shone a beam in their faces. If they didn’t blink,
you took them down.

 And if they did?

 Well, our orders were to capture quislings if possible, and use deadly
force only in self-defense. It sounded crazy, still does, but we rounded
 up a few, hog-tied them, turned them over to police or National Guard.
I’m not sure what they did with them. I’ve heard stories about Walla
Walla, you know, the prison where hundreds of them were fed and clothed
and even medically cared for. [His eyes flick to the ceiling.]

 You don’t agree.

 Hey, I’m not going there. You want to open that can of worms, read the
papers. Every year some lawyer or priest or politician tries to stoke
that fire for whatever side best suits them. Personally, I don’t care. I
 don’t have any feelings toward them one way or the other. I think the
saddest thing about them is that they gave up so much and in the end
lost anyway.

 Why is that?

 ’Cause even though we can’t tell the difference between them, the real
zombies can. Remember early in the war, when everybody was trying to
work on a way to turn the living dead against one another? There was all
 this “documented proof” about infighting—eyewitness accounts and even
footage of one zombie attacking another. Stupid. It was zombies
attacking quislings, but you never would have known that to look at it.
Quislings don’t scream. They just lie there, not even trying to fight,
writhing in that slow, robotic way, eaten alive by the very creatures
they’re trying to be.