[IC] "Them" (SlowPlow and Maggie)

Eight months ago, Michael would have sneered at simply eating baked beans for dinner. That was a meal for the poor; for someone who lived on the street, or as a side-dish. As the sole ingredient of the main course, baked beans would never have sufficed. Now, though, Michael looked forward to the prospect of such a meal. Any meal at all, really, would be the pinnacle of his day. Or, theirs, as it was now. They were a group of three, currently, traveling together. Before they arrived, he was content with his solitary life. He'd never had much use for other people. He had found them only as interference. Yet things had changed. Society had changed. No man could survive in this mess by himself. No man could stand up against them unless in number. People, the few who remained, had to stick together if they were lucky enough to find each other. Otherwise, there soon wouldn't be any more men to speak of. Mankind faced extinction. Michael lived, for now, but knew his existence could be cut short any day; by any chance encounter, by any of the many diseases the creatures had brought with them, or by starvation and dehydration. The era of the shopping mall had ended. Their era had begun. The vicious creatures. They possessed no love, nor compassion. They were as kindless as the insects they resembled. They didn't care for other species, or for symbiosis. They didn't care for cooperation or negotiation. Their only goal was to multiply. At first, although Michael had never been a believer, had thought their arrival on Earth as a punishment from God. That they were deserving of this, somehow. However, as time dragged on, he discontinued this belief. He saw more and more similarities between them and themselves. Only, they were now experiencing it from a whole different perspective. People were no longer on top. They were at the bottom, equal now with all the animals they had previously hunted. Animals they had hunted for necessity, or for sport. We hadn't sympathized with them, he thought, so why should they sympathize with humans?

Michael shivered. His baked beans were as cold as his rump. It was October, now. He had never liked the cold, but forced himself to be content with it. There had been fewer and fewer sightings of them, since the temperature started to drop, so he accepted the cold with that in mind. The journey they had started on five weeks ago had been tough for their group. They had started out as eight, all positive and ready for the treck north. But now only three remained, whose spirits were sapped. And they hadn't even reached Canadian borders yet. Tomorrow, though, they would enter the once great city of New York. As it were, they were lingering in the state's suburbs on the southern side. They were in an old wooden house; the type of house you'd see and think of the American dream. It would have looked very nice, once. Michael always fantasized about places they stayed at, or went past. Who had lived there before, and how it had looked. It was a nice escape from reality. As it were, the house was dark and ruined and smelled of mold. Most of the indoors were intact, which was why they'd chosen that specific house. There were beds enough for all of them, and the house wasn't likely to topple on them.

"Sod it all," a dark voice spoke in anger. Dennis Heartman was a good man, deep down, but he managed to hide it well. Ten years ago, he'd been arrested, charged and convicted for a multiple homocide. To this day, he claims his innocence. His prison stay was shortened, however, by the arrival of them. As a desperate last act, the President had conscripted all convicted felons, to bolster their ranks. Dennis' sentence had been shortened by two lifetimes that day. As circumstancer were, however, life would ironically have been better if he had gotten to live out his days behind bars. Michael, being the leader of sorts of this rag-tag group, had never regretted befriending Dennis. It wasn't a physical challenge too demanding of him, and if there ever were a fighting man, it was him. In a sense, Dennis had all the qualities Michael lacked. Yet he could, at times, be a royal pain in the ass. Especially with his grumbling. Dennis threw his half-empty can of beans across the room. Its red contents spilled all over as it hit the wall with a clank. "I'm sick of this shit. Day in, day out, walking here, walking there, across this state, over that. And what do we have to show for it? Nothing! A can of cold, baked beans each, before we go to sleep in this crappy hole. And what's happening tomorrow? Oh, yeah. More walking! And possibly, we'll stumble upon huge insects who wants kill us and lay eggs in our guts. Yeah. That's what I'll call a life worth living," he said fiercely. Michael found it suprising that Dennis' blood could boil even on this chilly evening.

"Calm down, Dennis," Michael tried, but the big man grunted and headed for the door. "You shouldn't go outside at night. Least of all by yourself. You know they prefer it when it's dark."

"I'll be fine. Just need to walk a bit. By myself," Dennis said.

Michael wanted to protest further, but he'd already gone out the door. In any case, it wouldn't have done any good, Michael reckoned. He sighed, and turned to their doctor. "You're not going mad on me too, are you, Doc? I don't fancy being the last sane, living man in this group."

They’d started out with eight, as good a number as any, and yet over the course of the past five weeks their numbers had dwindled to three – a culmination, perhaps, of fear and relentless physical danger. Two years ago Amelia Wilson would have been horrified by the sight of festering bodies and the stench of death and disease, now she was gradually becoming accustomed to the lack of feeling. While survival did demand a heightened sense of awareness and a certain level of intelligence it rarely, if ever, demanded basic human compassion. The less you felt, in other words, the better. Memories of those they had lost (she missed the company sometimes, but anyone would have) were best forgotten, or at least confined. Dennis, thank goodness, wasn’t one to dwell on past encounters or rotting corpses. Michael…she could never quite be sure with Michael, sometimes it seemed as though he thrived on a sense of nostalgia and other times it seemed as though he lived purely for the present. Either way, he was the one with the maps, the food.

The house they’d found was stable, the interior partly furnished despite its general state of deterioration. It was the sort of place that sent one’s well-cultivated survival instincts into a frenzy, unassuming in terms of its appearance and relatively easy to defend, or escape. Clearly the days of five star motels and three course meals were over. If Amelia were to be completely honest, unencumbered by her growing resentment of baked beans and tinned water, those days had never really existed in the first place. Most of her savings had gone towards med school, a glittering front to an otherwise dreary existence. Up until the invasion she’d spent her days studying and her nights cooped up in a small, one bedroom apartment with her boyfriend’s sister. Hardly a life worth fantasizing about. That said, there’d been good company and passable food, and she’d be hard pressed to say that she didn’t miss it. Life on the road, a backpack slung over one shoulder and her boots falling to veritable pieces, often felt as though it were a life without purpose. They had their reasons for going north, of course, but they weren’t the sorts of reasons that could sustain an entire life, an entire existence. Besides, there was no guarantee that the three of them would even make it. They’d started out with eight.

Her thoughts were cut short by the familiar rasp of Dennis Heartman, not surprising so much as slightly grating. Their group functioned on the silent allotment of roles, each practical and each of invariable use. Michael was the leader; perhaps a little more resourceful than they ever gave him credit for being. Dennis was the muscle, not that anyone had ever outwardly addressed him as being such. And herself? Amelia wasn’t exactly sure; all she knew was that the extensive medical training had proved somewhat useful given the nature of their situation. No doubt the other two had already placed her in a more definitive category.

She lifted the can of beans to her lips, watching as the larger of the two men huffed and puffed and made for the door. Was there any point in staging an intervention? Probably not, noise usually caused them to cluster, no doubt looking for more opportunities to breed and feed and whatever else it was that they did to their victims. Amelia hadn’t taken a close enough look at any bodies to know.

“Seems to me he’s mad enough for both of us.” The beans were cold, slimy in texture and off-putting in color. Lifting an eyebrow, she placed the can on the ground. “Going out there while it’s dark,” the former med student paused, “next thing you know he’ll be shooting targets.”

Truth be told, Amelia couldn’t exactly blame Dennis for the sudden outburst. It was tedious, the walking. It was tedious, the sleeping in different houses and the living off of baked beans and the having to operate on constant schedules (someone had to be awake at all times, even a novice would have known that). Complaining didn’t make much of a difference to their situation though. Neither did running off while it was still dark out and you had no decent backup. The best thing they could do was hope that the area was relatively clear, having to run to Dennis’ aid when they could barely see and she and Michael both looked exhausted probably wasn’t a winner.

“Could’ve saved the beans though.” Amelia stood, surveying the bean-splattered wall. “Sure, they taste like shit, but at least we’re not going to sit here and starve to death.” Starvation was common, like dehydration. It was also slow and torturous, a lesson learned from watching a multitude of people simply whither away. “For now, anyway. We should find some more stuff tomorrow if we can. Not beans." She cracked her knuckles once, twice. "They say too much of one thing isn't good for you."