Walking through Deadtown is like swimming in shark infested waters. The trick is to not act like prey. Don’t panic. Walk at an easy pace--not too fast and not too slow. Put on a show of confidence. Avoid confining areas like buildings or alleys. And, of course, always keep your club handy. It’s the standard info everybody learns in basic. Easy shit, really. Anybody can learn all they really need to know about getting though Deadtown in an afternoon. The tough part’s putting what you learn to use. It’s one thing to read the texts and watch the educational films, and quite another to find yourself surrounded by the walking dead, smelling their stink and hearing their groans and shuffles. Confronted with that, most people let the ol’ lizard brain kick in and run screaming for the hills. That’s why the company makes its newbies do practice runs in Deadville, a slightly more “controlled” environment in that its youngest “resident” has been dead long enough to be pretty brittle. Most newbies quit after their first practice run; seeing the walking dead shamble around can freak just about anybody out the first time they see it. If they last six months, they’re considered veterans. I’ve been at this job for eight years; pretty much since the beginning. I guess they keep saddling me with the newbie partners so they can benefit from my experience. More often that just means I gotta watch both our asses instead of just mine.

Seems to be the case with this one. Introduces himself as Kevin Marz and hasn’t shut up since.

“You think we’ll see some action?” he asks while we’re riding to town, patting his club in that nonchalant way newbies always think makes them look tough. God, if I had a nickel for every time some zitface asked that question their first day. Never fails.

“Nope,” I reply, my tone bored. Next he’ll ask why not.

“Why not?”

“Most’ve been dead over a year. Hard to get much of a fight outta somebody when they barely got enough muscle power to stand.”

He deflates a little at that. Idiot.

Everybody puts the bus’s windows up long before we hit the outskirts. You can smell Deadtown before you ever see it. I zip up the front of my reinforced hazard suit, secure the helmet over my head and listen to the familiar whirr as the filter kicks in. Kevin does likewise, a little clumsy in his unfamiliarity. Once his helmet’s on I activate the two-way radio. “Check.”

“Coming in clear,” Kevin’s tinny response crackles in my ear. Gotta get a new headset.

“Okay, kiddo. Stick close to me and don’t make any sudden movements. Eyes and ears open at all times. Just like in the practice runs.”

“I know,” he says, a little peevish.

The front window’s view is totally obscured by the wall enclosing the town, taller than the tallest buildings with only one way in or out. And to be doubly safe, a moat as deep as a canyon encircles the outer wall. The bus trundles over the retractable bridge, wheezes to a halt just beyond the outer gate. Everybody stands up, sliding their clubs into their belt loops, and shuffles for the exit. Kevin, being the newbie, gets the job of fetching the bucket from the bus’s storage compartment. Once everybody’s ready the outer gate rolls open. We all stroll through, the outer gate closes, and a moment later the inner gate opens giving some of us our first view of Deadtown.

“Shit,” Kevin breathes. Fairly standard reaction for first timers.

There’s a disturbing number of fleshies out and about--those of the walking dead not far past rigor mortis. They’re the ones you gotta watch out for. The ones most likely to attack without provocation. Some say it’s because their newly infected brains still retain some trace memories of their former lives; that they resent the living for being alive and take their frustrations out on us. Personally, I think that’s bullshit. But they are way more dangerous than their dried-up cousins, the dessies. I count three of them so far, their orange prison jumpsuits stained and torn but still recognizable. Must’ve missed the memo on the last drop.

“C’mon.” I head towards my assigned territory with my new partner. Each two-person Harvest team is assigned an area covering five or six city blocks. Everybody has their own way of rooting out bonebags. I prefer circling the perimeter and working my way towards the middle in a spiral. A thorough search takes pretty much all day to complete. If I’m extremely lucky, I find maybe one bonebag.

I notice another house has collapsed since my last search. Deadtown’s in sorry shape. Fleshies and dessies shamble aimlessly, sometimes bumping into things. My ears are filled with the sounds of groans and Kevin’s ragged breathing over the two-way. A leather-skinned dessie lists towards him. Kevin fumbles for his club.

“Easy, kiddo,” I put a restraining hand on his wrist. The dessie shuffles by without a glance in our direction. Kevin shakes off my hand.

“Would you please stop calling me that?”

“Force of habit. I go through so many partners I don’t even bother learning names anymore.”

We continue our search with me in the lead. It’s funny, but even now the thing I find most eerie about the place is how empty it is, aside from the dead, of course. No squirrels, no birds. Hell, even the bugs stay away from here. Maybe they’re smarter than we give them credit for. Kevin and I go through every building I deem stable enough, never letting the exit out of sight and always keeping one eye and both ears open for angry fleshies lying in wait. Not that they’re smart enough to hide deliberately. Some of them just wander into buildings until they hit a wall and stand there stupidly until some kind of movement gets their attention, or until they rot, which is good.

A couple of hours into our search we find our bonebag. It’s impossible for me to tell its gender; nothing but rags and bones with a few stray hairs and leathery bits clinging to them. We find it lying in a corner of an old gas station.

“Jackpot,” Kevin says, kneeling beside the bonebag. I keep watch while he works. He pries the lid off of the bucket and sets it aside; the bucket’s interior is padded with foam. Using the butt of his club, he knocks away the dangling lower jaw, then grips the skull, twists, and yanks up sharply. With a rattle and snap, the skull’s jerked free of the clinging vertebrae. The frail skeleton collapses under the assault, sending up a cloud of bone dust. Kevin lowers the skull with its still-active brain into the padded bucket with care and secures the lid. He gives the thumbs up. The commission from that single harvested brain could pay for an entire year at the most expensive ivy-league university you can think of, plus room and board. Or a new luxury yacht. Whichever. It’s a great source of irony that the same disease that gives the walking dead existence also provides the source for the greatest medical breakthrough in the last century. An infected brain that’s aged long enough for the body to have rotted away to bones contains a chemical compound that, with a little tinkering in the labs, is able to cure just about any neurological disease you can think of. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia, just to name a few. It’s the reason Deadtown exists, and why Harvesters like me are necessary.

The next block we see the Preacher standing on the remains of a wrecked pickup. The greenish fleshie groans and lifts his arms, a tattered bible clutched in a clawlike left hand, white collar askew. Kevin tenses at the sight.

“Relax,” I tell him, “He’s harmless. Preacher’s the least aggressive fleshie I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s no convict,” Kevin states the obvious.

“Nope. Few weeks ago this old rev decided God wanted him to try and save the poor souls condemned to wander the earth,” I explain, “He managed to sneak in through the gates one night and started preaching to the walking dead on one of the busiest streets. Drew one hell of a crowd. Thought for sure he’d be ripped to shreds, but he managed to just get bit a few times.”

“Looks like he’s still preaching.”

“Far as I know he is.”

Kevin shudders. “Poor bastard.”

“We all gotta go sometime.” I gesture to my partner to follow.

We clear about half a dozen more buildings before the newbie brings up the inevitable subject. “So…I heard you were bitten.”

I sigh. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d get to that. Guess you wanna hear the story.”

“If you don’t want to--”

“No, it’s fine.” We pause to let a dessie woman crawl past. “Happened about three months after I became a Harvester. One of the first, in fact. Deadtown was a lot less broken down than it is now. Me’n my partner, Angelo, were looking through an old department store. Still had clothes on the racks and everything. Anyway, I started getting this itch on the corner of my nose. Y’know how it is when you can’t scratch an itch, pretty soon it feels like something’s trying to burrow into your skin.”

Kevin nods. Everybody who wears the suits knows what that’s like.

“Anyhow, dumbass newbie that I was, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I told Angelo to keep watch while I took my helmet off. I remember how surprised I was that it didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would. Kinda musty, like grandma’s attic. I was trying to scratch with my glove still on when something landed on my back. It was a dessie. Damn thing must’ve been on the second floor when it caught a whiff of me and went over the rail. I was screaming at Angelo to get it off me when it took a bite outta my face.” I point to the moon-shaped scar on my left cheek where it can be seen through the helmet’s faceplate.

“Jesus,” Kevin gasps.

“Yeah. I was so pissed I caved the dessie’s head in. Angelo was ready to finish me off. Figured it’d be a mercy killing. I managed to talk him out of it. Reminded him how the eggheads said the virus or whatever needed moisture in order to transmit to the living. That’s one of the reasons fleshies are more dangerous than dessies.”

“So they let you out of Deadtown,” my new partner once again states the obvious. I hope this isn’t a regular thing for him.

I nod. “They kept me in quarantine more than a month before deciding I wasn’t gonna turn.”

“How could you keep doing this after what happened?”

I shrug. “Why not? I’m still alive, and I’ve learned from my mistake.”

The rest of the search is pretty much without incident. At one point we find a dessie woman tangled up in some overgrown ivy that’s all but buried the little cottage supporting it. We watch her pathetic struggling for a moment. She must’ve been inside the house for a while, considering the amount of fuzzy mold on her skin. A cluster of white mushrooms has sprouted from her left eye socket. She doesn’t seem to notice the two of us.

“Keep your eyes peeled.” I holster my club and step up to the trapped dessie.

“What’re you doing?” Kevin’s expression through his faceplate is totally mystified.

I grab the vines entangling the dead woman’s left arm and start yanking them loose. The dessie shows her gratitude by trying to sink her teeth into my shoulder. I barely notice, she’s so weak. Even if I wasn’t wearing the suit I doubt she could break the skin. Once her arm’s free I get to work on her legs. I run into some trouble with her right ankle. Damn thing just doesn’t want to come loose. I keep tugging on the stubborn foliage, cussing under my breath. Suddenly another pair of gloved hands grabs hold. I look up into my partner’s faceplate. He returns my gaze steadily. The corner of my mouth curls up in a smirk.

“On three,” I tell him, “One. Two. Three!”

We haul back on the vines.

“One. Two. Three!” Another pull and the ivy suddenly tears loose. The three of us stumble back a few steps. The dessie loses her balance and falls on her hands and knees. Kevin and I watch as she manages to climb to her feet. Her one milky eye blinks in confusion. A moment later she totters off to wherever, apparently forgetting we’re even there.

“You’re welcome,” I mutter.

Kevin frowns in puzzlement. “Why did we just do that?”

“Well, I can’t speak for your reasoning, but I felt sorry for her.”

“Why?”

I hate questions like that. “Why the hell not?” I head for the next house, not bothering to check if he’s following.

Late afternoon, early evening, the Harvest teams gather around the inner gate with their finds, if any. Most weren’t as lucky as Kevin and I. Team Epsilon actually found two bonebags. Lucky bastards. Kevin hasn’t said much since I snapped at him. That’s alright by me. Not looking to make any new friends. We load our marked bucket into the bus’s undercarriage and climb aboard. I take my usual seat towards the back. Kevin opts to sit with Colby and Ramirez. They’re always friendliest towards newbies. I tear away the sealant tape from my wrists and slip off my loosened gloves. Unfasten the helmet clasps with sweaty hands and pull the confining bubble off my head with a sigh of relief. The others do the same. Twelve hours in any suit, no matter how advanced and “user friendly,” is about enough to leave anyone claustrophobic. Pretty soon the bus is filled with the distinctive aroma of crowded, sweaty bodies. I stow my helmet and gloves in the overhead compartment for the time being.

The bus rumbles to life, blackish smoke spewing from its ass pipe. I lean my head against the thinly padded backrest and close my eyes. I don’t know why, but I always find it easier to fall asleep in a moving vehicle than a stationary bed. Guess that’s why I don’t drive that often. The steady vibrations and the exhaustion of a hard day’s work soon lulls me into a doze. Before I know it, someone nudges me awake. We’ve reached the station. Everyone debarks with their helmets tucked under their arms or dangling from their hands. Inside, we hang our hazard suits on labeled hooks, remove our sweat stained undergarments and toss them into the laundry chute, and head for the showers. A hot shower after a long day in Deadtown is always a godsend.

My newbie partner completely slips my mind until he approaches me in the locker room where I’m changing into my jeans and T-shirt.

“So,” he says awkwardly, “see you in the mess?”

“Nah, I’m just gonna head on out.”

“Oh. Um, d’you need a ride?”

I give him a deadpan expression. “No, thanks.”

“Okay. See you next time.” He shuffles off for the exit.

I take pity on him. “Hey, you did pretty good for your first day.”

His face lights up like a pinball machine. “Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it,” I reply casually, “Ever.”

As I watch the kid walk away with a jaunt in his step I shake my head and wonder if I was ever that young. Then I wonder when the hell I got so sentimental. I sigh, lace up my sneakers, and head for the exit behind a small mob of fellow Harvesters joshing and carrying on. None of them have worked here longer than six months and already they’re seasoned veterans. I’ve only known a handful who’ve lasted more than a year. Deadtown eats away at your soul like the residents would eat your flesh. I can only imagine what all they say about me, having worked here for almost a decade. None of them has ever thought to ask why I’ve stuck around this long; probably don’t want to spoil the mystery. It’s not for the money; I’ve got enough saved up over the years that I could retire tomorrow and live comfortably for the rest of my days. It’s not for the pathetic hero-worship so many of the others seem to have for me. It’s not because some sick part of me gets off on bashing uncontrollable fleshies or beheading bonebags. The truth is something much simpler, and much worse.

Nine weeks later, I get the phone call I’ve been waiting for. The last appeal has ended; the sentence is upheld. I get a call shortly after that from a pal who works as one of the guards at Deadtown telling me that the bus arrives today. I jump into my car and arrive just as the tractor-trailer’s backing into the inner wall’s loading gate. It’s a modified cattle car crammed with condemned men and women. They peer hazily through the gaps, shuffling their feet, not uttering a word. They’ve all been doped; wouldn’t do to have the sacrificial lambs try to stampede away from the altar. I stare through the narrow gaps in the car’s sides hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but no dice. There’s just too many milling figures in there. I climb the steps to the nearest guard tower. The two guards stationed there are Aarons and Jessup, big swarthy fellows who look so much alike they’re often mistaken for brothers.

Jessup nods a greeting to me. “Hey, here for the show?”

I sound a noncommittal grunt and head for the window overlooking the area just inside the gate. Just in time. The concrete and steel reinforced door trundles up like a castle portcullis, exposing the first rows of jumpsuited victims. Inside the modified trailer the back wall begins sliding forward, forcing its passengers towards the opening and certain nonlife. Many of the passing dead halt mid-shamble to gawp at this event. The sight of them causes most of the convicts to sober up in a hurry and the inevitable panic ensues. There’s screaming and shouting, people trying to force their way back into the trailer and crushing those still inside. Meanwhile the dead, namely the violence-prone fleshies, excited by all the noise and the prospect of a meal, make a run for the fresh meat.

That’s when I see him, his once well-groomed hair now a tangled silver mop, broad shoulders hunched in that familiar posture. Part of me hopes he’ll look up and notice me in the tower watching his imminent demise, while most of me knows if those piercing eyes of his turn my way, I’ll probably duck out of sight. Even after all this time, I’m still afraid of the fucker. I lean my forehead against the cool glass as the fleshies stampede towards the condemned in their orange jumpsuits. My eyes widen in eagerness as the dead fall upon their prey. The old horror films don’t do them justice. The fleshies tear into the condemned prisoners, biting and dismembering, devouring their insides while the victims continue to struggle. A little less than half of the newcomers manage to get away with a few bites and scratches and make a break for the abandoned buildings where they might find places to hide. They probably think they’re the lucky ones. I notice that he’s among those ill-fated few and can’t help but feel a bit gleeful at the prospect of his slow, agonizing transformation.

“God, I hate this,” Aarons groans, sticking in his earbuds and cranking up the volume on his iPod in an effort to blot out the sounds.

Jessup shudders and turns away from the scene below. “First time I saw a drop-off I puked. Is it bad I don’t have to anymore?”

“Does it still bother you?” I ask, surprised that my voice is so calm.

“Yeah.”

“Then no.”

The activity behind the wall slows as the dead settle down to their grisly meals. Almost directly below me a fleshie man looks up from a disemboweled victim, blood dripping from his chin. I swear that walking corpse is looking right into my eyes. I wonder what he sees.

Another Harvest rolls around. My last, though I don’t realize this until the day’s almost over and me and Kevin head towards the gate, our foam-lined bucket loaded with treasure, ending the day on a high note. Then I see him stumble around a corner of a wrecked house and out of sight. My pulse quickens. I turn to the newbie and say in as casual a tone as I can muster, “Why don’t you go on ahead. There’s something I need to take care of.”

Through his faceplate I see the Kevin frown. “Isn’t separating against the regs?”

I roll my eyes, impatient. “The gate’s just a few hundred yards away. It’s not like you’d be stranding me. Look,” I point to a distant hazard suited pair, “There’s Colby and Ramirez. You can go and wait with them till I get back. They won’t mind.”

“But what’re you--”

“It’s personal.” I turn away from my confused partner and saunter off in the direction I last saw him. Kevin, wisely, doesn’t try to follow.

I find him in a weed-infested backyard trying to navigate his way around a collapsed garden shed. His orange jumpsuit’s ripped in places and stained with god-knows-what. Even with his back to me I can tell he’s full-on fleshie; the skin of his exposed hands and the back of his neck is blotchy and discolored with the onset of decay. Bet he stinks something awful. I switch off my radio, not wanting Kevin to overhear, then tug my club free of its loop and smack it against the weathered boards of the ruined house now blocking the exit gate from my sight. The sudden noise makes the dead man spin around and almost lose his balance, but he manages to keep his feet. He stares at me with milky, uncomprehending eyes. I smirk. “Hey, Dad.”

My father, on the run for years for the murder of my mom and two little brothers, was finally captured eight years ago and sentenced to death. All these years I’ve waited for this moment, haunted by the memory of that nightmarish afternoon when Dad came home early to discover Mom loading our suitcases into her car after finally mustering the courage to try and escape. I remember the grotesque, twisted expression on my father’s face as he realized what was happening. Remember the screeching sounds Mom made when she saw him take a tire iron to my baby brothers’ heads, the wet crunches of their fragile little skulls. Then my father used the tire iron on Mom and I found myself running, a skinny, ungainly twelve-year-old. Running, running in blind, unthinking animal panic. Running for my life.

I was fast then, and I’m fast now. I lash out with my club and shatter both of my father’s kneecaps. He tumbles forward with a croaking roar, claws at the weedy ground with long, ragged fingers. I stare at the man who ruined my life and realize I’m no longer afraid. He looks up at me without recognition, only an empty shell of the person I once called my father. Doesn’t matter. I lift my ever-faithful club and bring it down on the fleshie’s skull. I don’t stop swinging until there’s nothing left but pulp and splintered bone. Afterwards, I stroll away from the sorry remains with a warm glow of satisfaction, swinging my bloodied, brain-smeared club like a cheerful English bobby walking his beat.

“What kept ya?” Ramirez asks, sounding bored and a tad resentful for the delay.

“Just taking care of some unfinished business,” I reply with a grin. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s get outta this dump and back to the land of the living.” I pat my befuddled partner companionably on the shoulder and head for the gate. I leave the dead behind me.

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