A group of women were hanging laundry from a clothesline strung between cubes. Half a dozen children ran around through aisles playing tag. A man in a blue jumpsuit wheeled a large grey garbage bin toward the exit. Two elderly couples sat at a table playing dominoes, smiling and joking with one another. A group of teenage boys stood together, flirting with a group of teenage girls.
Nicole struggled to put the scene into words. “It’s… normal…” she mumbled.
“What’s that?” her navy escort asked.
Nicole shifted the weight of Vince in her arms. “Is this normal?” She paused to scan the enormous storage bay for any sign of Kelly Damico.
The woman smiled back. “This?” She gestured to a crudely painted sign that hung over the chain linked gate that read ‘Cube City.’ “The new normal maybe, but yeah… I guess so. Stand in line here and you’ll be processed.” She gestured towards a series of checkpoints along the gate. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No…” Nicole continued to look around in disbelief. “Thank you.”
“No problem, Ma’am. Welcome to the U.S.S. Boxer.” The woman smiled again, bowed her head slightly, and disappeared back into the crowd.
Nicole took her place at the end of the line and brushed her son’s hair back. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
“I feel icky,” Vince replied weakly.
“You want me to keep holding you?” Nicole asked.
Vince nodded.
“You want some water? Something to eat?” Nicole kissed her son on the forehead.
“No,” Vince buried his face in her shoulder.
“Aww, sweetie, let’s get you to bed.” Nicole rocked her son gently. He had been sick a handful of times in his life, but she imagined dehydration and hunger coupled with the insanity of the previous couple of days, had taken their toll on him. He’d be fine after a little bed rest, a change of clothes and something to eat. Watching the children laugh and play within Cube City made her smile. It had been nearly a year since she saw her son play like a normal little boy. The thought of giving her son a sense of normalcy nearly brought tears to her eyes. He could heal the scars of the past few months and meet some children his age. In a day or two, he’d be making friends and having fun. It would take some time to shake off the nightmares, but maybe they’d start to feel safe, eventually.
Her mind wondered at the possibilities. Life would never be the same as it had been, but she and Vince were among the very few lucky ones.
“Name?” a voice interrupted her musings.
A heavy-set woman with a clipboard looked up at Nicole with tired eyes. There was a mentholated gel on her upper lip, which served to mask the smell of the storage bay. . Nicole had been so lost in thought, that her arrival at the front of the line took her by surprise. “Nicole Shemp,” she answered.
“Do you have any training in any of the following areas? Agriculture, Auto Repair, Construction, Education…” The woman rattled off a long list of skills, of which Nicole had none. Before the zombie apocalypse, she had been an actuary at an investment bank. She could navigate financial risk as well as anyone she had ever known, and she had been compensated nicely for that ability. That skill was obsolete now. Mechanics and nurses, farmers and soldiers — these were the people the fleet needed. There wasn’t any finance, there wasn’t any commerce, and there weren’t any stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. For the first time in her life, she realized that she was unskilled. A decade of experience in finance had left her unprepared for this new world.
The woman reached into a box by her feet and pulled out a circular white button. It looked like something someone might wear to express a clever saying or their allegiance to a political party. She frowned as she filled out a name tag, snapped it into the pin, and handed it to Nicole. Nicole looked around at the other inhabitants of cube city. Some had green, red or blue pins. A few wore yellow or orange pins, but the vast majority of the pins were white.
“This is your ID. You need to keep this on you at all times. What’s this boy’s name? Is he your son?”
“Vince Shemp. Yes, he’s my son… what do the colored pins mean?”
“Let’s get through processing and you can ask anyone inside anything you want to know. How old is your son? Does your son have any special needs? Allergies?” The woman spouted off another litany of questions, picked up another white pin, and handed it to Nicole.
“Is your son sick?” The woman finally asked, noting Vince’s complete lethargy.
“Sick? No, no… he’s just tired,” Nicole responded. “Last night the DDC we were in was overrun and…”
“You’re in section WCU12, cube 26,” the woman interrupted. She had clearly heard her share of harrowing stories from San Diego and had no interest in hearing another one. “Breakfast rations will be distributed tomorrow at six am. Next?” She dismissed Nicole and immediately began processing the man next in line.
Nicole thought for a minute about probing for more information about her new home. She decided instead, it was best just to put Vince down for the night. She could learn more about Cube City tomorrow. She turned and began to look for her section, when she was frozen by the sound of a familiar voice.
“How long does he have to stay out there?” Sergeant Miguel Ramos asked.
Nicole attempted to pinpoint Miguel.
“I heard forty eight hours. If he doesn’t turn…” Specialist Pamela Grace’s voice responded.
Directly behind her in the line to her left, stood three members of the convoy team that had rescued her from the DDC. The soldiers were disheveled and appeared worn out; Miguel leaned on crutches, his leg in a cast. At the front of the group stood Sergeant Carl Harvey, surveying the scene silently. His gaze passed over her as if she was just another vaguely familiar civilian.
Nicole darted away from them. She knew the convoy team may not even recognize her, but there was no reason to press her luck any further.
“Mommy… I… I…” Vince shuddered in her arms.
“Shhhh, sweetie… shhhh… I’ll have you to bed soon. You want down?” Nicole rocked her son gently as she walked.
Vince shook his head ‘no’ as he clung to her tightly.
Nicole walked past one sign after another until she found WCU12: Women and Children Under 12. Inside were several dozen women of varying ages and a small handful of young children. The female guard who stood at the gate looked at her pin, nodded, and gestured for her to enter.
She stepped inside and began walking down the isle of cubes looking for number 26. An elderly woman in a torn and sweat-stained t-shirt sat in a camping chair. She was sucking on a cigarette and watching Nicole intently. Another woman wore a faded blue robe and sat on a bucket, sewing a shirt. A third woman in jeans and a sports bra was doing pushups just outside her cube — a baby cooed on a blanket in front of her. No one greeted Nicole.
“Another blank,” the old woman spat in a raspy voice before taking a deep drag of her cigarette.
Nicole ignored the comment. It sounded negative, but whatever it meant could be found out later. With numerous eyes on her, Nicole moved quickly toward her cube number. She was uncomfortable and had a sense that she was not welcome here. Once she found her living space, she ducked inside and closed the sheet behind her.
The cube was small, and two sad-looking cots sat empty against the walls. The ship’s lights shone dimly through the tarp overhead, and Nicole suddenly realized she hadn’t a thing to her name. Her possessions had been left behind at the DDC. She had no blankets, no pillows, not even a change of clothes. Vince had no toys, no books, and no clean underwear. They were destitute, and their survival depended entirely on the charity of the military.