I didn’t hesitate at all. I’ve already told you, I believe—and if I haven’t, please forgive me; my memory isn’t what it used to be—but over the course of this apocalypse, I had grown to love reading. I was pretty much always looking for new material. Nothing kills time like getting lost in a great story, and we always had time to kill.
“If I do, does this officially make me a member of the book club?” I asked.
“Eh, not quite. You will be once Wendy stumps you with some scholarly question about the book.” He leaned forward and whispered, “She was an English teacher, and if you ask me, they’re all a little…bananas when it comes to deciphering what an author meant with a particular description and whatnot. Me, I think sometimes they made something blue because they couldn’t think of anything else. Not because the character’s supposed to be sad.”
I nodded. “Entirely possible.” But what did I know about writing and literature? Nothing. All I knew was I enjoyed a good book.
“Here ya go.” George passed me Frankenstein, and I took it. He clamped a meaty hand on my shoulder. It made me feel like a kid.
“Well, you ready to get to work?” he asked.
“I am.”
“All right, let me show you the ropes.”
That was just what he did. He took me on a tour of the west end towers. Two of them stood right above the City’s main entrance. The tunnel system didn’t extend out this far, so getting from point A to point B meant being exposed to the elements. That was just one of the many downsides of the job.
I don’t think I’m putting it lightly when I say that guard duty sucked. I mean, really sucked. Don’t get me wrong, it was an easy job, but it was mind-numbingly dull, and every few hours I had to head out of my little box of a room atop the tower and make sure the cameras were working, because the cold sometimes froze them up.
Since George was head of security, it meant he was too busy to deal with training a small fry like me. That was where Lee, George’s assistant manager, came in. Lee was my “supervisor” and “trainer,” but he didn’t supervise or train much during my first two weeks on the job.
Still, I liked Lee ever since he showed us around our barracks. He spoke funny, was vulgar, and loved to smoke Camels, but the best thing of all was how he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.
The room on top of the tower wasn’t much bigger than the jail cell I’d spent a few nights in upon arriving here. If I had to guess, I’d say it was eight by eight, maybe a bit smaller. There were no windows. There was, however, two chairs, a small card table, and a bank of monitors on the far wall. You get to know someone in such tight quarters whether you want to or not.
That first night, Lee offered me a smoke. I declined. Other than the occasional joint in high school, I wasn’t much of a smoker.
“Your loss, brother,” he said. “Pretty soon all the tobacco’s gonna be gone. ‘Cept maybe if they can get that garden they been talkin’ ‘bout in the far side of the gym. You sure you don’t want one?”
I raised a hand. “Nah. More for you that way.”
Lee smiled and showed a set of yellowed teeth. “Damn skippy.” He leaned back, took a drag on his cigarette, and closed his eyes. “But I haven’t forgot my manners.”
“I see that.” When Lee didn’t make a stab at conversation over the next minute or two, I cleared my throat and said, “Is it nap time?”
“Yup, had me a rough day.”
He didn’t see me, but I shrugged and let him sleep. This job wasn’t the kind where you needed direction. You watched the monitors. You waited. If one of the screens went black, you fixed it. If you saw something, you radioed it in to the other watchers, but if you saw something really bad, you rang the head honchos and hoped reinforcements would come.
Lee snorted himself awake an hour or so later. His eyes widened as he looked around our sardine can, unsure of where he was for a moment. I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Damn it,” he whispered.
“What’s up?”
“I was dreamin’ about boinkin’ this beautiful blonde.” He cupped his hands and held them in front of his chest. “Biggest dang knockers I ever saw.”
As ridiculous and inappropriate as this was, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“That ever happen to you?” he asked.
“Not in a long time.” My dreams weren’t as pleasant as that. My dreams were nightmares. Wanting to change the subject, I said, “What’s up with John Berretti? You like him?”
Lee cocked an eyebrow at me like I was crazy. “Like him? That’s like askin’ if I like gettin’ my nuts flicked. Hell naw, I don’t like that son of a bitch. And I’ve only ever talked to him a few times. But that’s all it took to figure that out. He’s always kinda…you know, kept to himself. Hides away in his little laboratory, workin’ on a ‘cure’ or some crap like that.” Lee lowered his voice. “You ask me, he don’t know nothin’. He probably worked that out at the onset, but he keeps hammerin’ away so people don’t get on his case about havin’ monkey turds for brains. Or for fuckin’ everything up.”
I nodded. “The incident?”
“So you’ve heard.” Lee seemed surprised. “Doubted Rider or any of the big wigs woulda let newbies in on that piece of dark history.”
“Rider’s a good guy.”
“If he was such a good guy, he’d kick Berretti outta here.” Lee reached for another cigarette—struck a match, inhaled, exhaled, and a jet of smoke blew out of his nostrils. “Because of that whole shitshow, I had to move rooms. I went from livin’ like a king to livin’ like a peasant. Berretti must have
