“The same thing we have been, plant food. Who knows if it will grow, but there’s not much else we can do. We all have to become farmers. Wind-pollinated plants, chickens, pigs, any animal that will provide food without having to consume too much of it, because even feed for animals is going to become deathly scarce.”
“Fine, well, I guess just keep doing what you’re doing. Though in truth I had hoped for more.”
Rosa’s words stung, but Jason couldn’t blame him. He was disappointed as well.
*****
It took Kala three weeks to pilot their small group into Tennessee. Finding diesel every day took them hours and sometimes they still came up empty. They traveled roads where they were unlikely to encounter people, for here in the deep south, the good ole’ boys were armed and deadly. A near-constant chatter of gunfire permeated the quiet air. Kala, Dylan, and Sophie had set out from southern Florida just the three of them. In northern Florida they had picked up Andrea, her husband Tom, and Devon.
During their northward trek through Alabama, Kala picked up a few more stragglers. Dylan wasn’t a fan, he didn’t trust anyone out there, but Kala would not turn them away. They found an Infiniti SUV that seated eight and jammed in their two new passengers. They were just kids like her, like Dylan.
Kala looked over her shoulder. Mae and James sat in the farthest back seat, and Kala could see they were holding hands. James was a small, squirrely-looking kid, with thick glasses and a rich southern accent. His face was pale white except for about a million little red pimples that had been sprouting up over every bare inch.
“I had a prescription for my acne,” he had told her yesterday, “but that’s gone now, so it just grows like weeds.” He was funny, and Kala liked him instantly. Plus James had acquired an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which added nicely to their armament.
His girlfriend, Mae, was a bit of an enigma. She wasn’t really a pretty girl, but not unpleasant to look at. She was a little taller than James, with a rounded face and hair that stopped just below her jawline. She had the unfortunate habit of keeping the hair in her face, covering up her eyes, which were a very pretty pale blue. She didn’t speak, at least she hadn’t spoken to Kala, and when she walked she almost seemed to shuffle. An odd duck, she thought. Mae was leaning against James in the back seat and it made Kala smile.
They had just wound through a series of tight turns on Caney Creek road and were about to cross over into Kentucky when, without warning, the windshield snapped and a splatter of safety glass shot in at them. The thick chunks weren't sharp, but pelted her face. There was a golf ball sized hole in the windshield, directly in line with where her head would have been if she hadn’t been looking back at Mae and James. Then Dylan started screaming in the back seat.
“What happened Dylan, what is it?”
“My leg, my leg! I think I’ve been shot!”
“Shit,” Kala cursed and jerked the wheel hard to the right, sending them skidding off the road and behind a dense copse of trees. Dylan was bleeding everywhere and he was freaking out. He woke up both Sophie and Devon, and now his little sister was screaming. Kala unbuckled and climbed back into his seat. The floor was covered with blood. “Stop moving! Let me see!”
Kala pulled his pant leg up. There was a grisly-looking hole right through his shin and calf. “Definitely a gunshot. Andrea, first aid kit!”
Andrea was already on it, handing the white steel box up from the way back. Kala turned his leg over in her hand, causing more screams. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she called up to him. The bullet had blown straight through his leg, at least it wasn’t in him, but his leg was screwed.
“Sophie, honey, please stop screaming in my ear.” Sophie didn’t listen, and there was nothing she could do to calm her. She pulled the bottle of peroxide from the kit and poured it over Dylan’s leg. He howled again and Kala shushed him. She grabbed the thick roll of gauze and packed some into the wound, then began winding it over his leg.
“Dylan, all I can do is stop the bleeding. But, I - I’m not a surgeon, I don't know what else I can do.”
Dylan was gripping the seat with both hands, his head held back and his jaw clenched through the pain. She finished wrapping his leg and thought it should stem the flow of blood. There didn’t seem to be enough blood for it to have hit an artery, thank god, but if an infection took hold, Dylan would be as good as dead.
“Tom, James, take the AR-15 and the shotgun and scout in through those trees. See if you can get eyes on who’s shooting at us.”
“All right,” James said, climbing out of the car.
“But take the binoculars too,” she called after him, “I didn’t hear a shot, so this guy could be a long way off.”
“Right,” Tom called back to her.
“And stay behind the trees,” she shouted, “they’re probably still looking for anything that’s moving.”
Kala fished five packets of ibuprofen from the kit and tore them open. Each of them held two pills. It would have to do.
Dylan took the pills and the water bottle she offered with shaking hands.
“It’s going to be okay, Sophie,” Kala said, trying to calm the girl, who was now gripping Dylan in a tight bear hug, sobbing inconsolably. “Dylan is just fine, I promise, I just gave him some medicine to help him feel better.”
Dylan downed the pills with a grimace and caught Kala’s eye. He nodded. “I’m fine Sophie,” he gritted out. “I’m okay now, Auntie Kala fixed me.”
A pale white hand reached over from the far back seat. Kala looked up to see Mae holding out a mason jar full of clear liquid.
“Is that moonshine?” Kala asked.
Mae nodded.
“Where the hell did you get that?”
Mae shrugged and gestured to Dylan. Kala looked over to him. She turned the jar over in her hands then opened the lid and took a whiff.
“Eeuw! Shit, yeah that’s definitely moonshine,” she muttered.
“Don’t give him more than an ounce or two,” Andrea piped up from the back. “With his skinny body, any more than that could really hurt him.
Kala was nervous about it. She knew that pure grain alcohol was a dangerous thing. She watched Dylan’s face, still contorted in pain. Finally, she sighed and filled a small Dixie Cup halfway with the pungent liquid and handed it to him. “Drink this, but do it fast. It’s going to burn,” she added.
Dylan didn’t hesitate, slamming back the clear alcohol. He coughed several times, then laid his head back against the seat.
“Okay, we’re going to get the kids out and hunker down behind the car until we figure out what’s going on. Dylan, lay down and close your eyes, just try to keep breathing as steady as possible.” Dylan nodded weakly and lowered himself down in the seat while Kala pulled Sophie out. She was thankful for the SUV’s great size; it did a good job of hiding them. Even with the dense trees all around, she was nervous. Who the hell was taking potshots at cars driving down the road? Plenty of people really, she thought. They had encountered their share of militants on their journey north. Kala sat with her back against the car, holding Sophie on her lap. Andrea was standing, holding Devon against her legs while he tried to squirm away.
Kala caught Andrea’s attention and spoke. “ylanDay eedsnay a ospitalhay.”
Kala watched Andrea’s confusion turn to concentration as she waded through the pig Latin. Kala didn’t want to scare Sophie.
“illWay, ehay ieday?” Andrea asked.
Kala nodded. “If ehay urvivessay the ockshay, ehay illway etgay a atalfay infectionyay ithoutway ongstray antibioticsyay.”
Andrea’s face paled. They had been together for weeks now, and while Dylan had never really warmed up to anyone but Kala and Devon, they were still a team. Andrea was now more like an aunt to the younger members of the party. She cared, that much was evident.
“owHay onglay?” Andrea asked.
“A oupleCay aysday at ostmay,” Kala responded somberly.
Andrea shivered.
“Why are you talking like that?” Devon asked her, looking at them curiously.
“We’re just being silly,” Andrea told him, hugging him against her.
“Who do you think is out there, Kala?”
Kala shook her head. “It could be anybody. The road ahead clears out beyond these trees and then it's just a lot of open hills going into Kentucky…” She trailed off as she spoke, getting lost in her thoughts. They were almost to the border, the border…
“What are you thinking?” Andrea asked, having learned weeks ago to trust in Kala’s near-genius intuition.
“That someone’s protecting the border.” The quiet voice was so unexpected that Kala jumped a little, rousing Sophie from the exhausted slumber she had fallen into. Mae was sitting near the front of the SUV on the ground, so silent that she had been forgotten. Mae met their eyes for a moment and then went back to looking at the gravelly ground beneath them.
“Oh god,” Andrea said.
“Yeah, I hope you’re wrong, Mae,” Kala said softly.
Mae shrugged but didn’t look up.
They heard crunching footsteps approaching from the other side of the SUV and Tom and James came creeping around to their side. They were out of breath and plopped to the ground. Kala handed James her water bottle and he drank a gulp before tossing it to Tom. James plopped down next to Mae.
“Well girls,” Tom began, wiping a hand over the bald crown of his head. “We’ve got a big problem. There’s a construction crew up there, they're building a fence.”
“What?” Andrea gasped.
Kala’s head drooped.
“And there are U.S. military soldiers spanning as far out as we can see to the east and west. They’ve got little watchtowers set up; they look like miniature water towers without the tanks.” James stared hard at Kala. The defeat was evident in his sunken features.
“They’re building a border Kala, they’re cutting off the south,” James continued.
“They’re going to leave us?” Andrea’s voice was rising with panic. “They’re just going to let everyone out here die?” She started breathing rapidly and Kala could tell she was close to slipping into hysteria.
“Andrea, we aren’t going to die; we’re going to find a way to communicate with them, let them know that we’re not sick,” Tom hugged her against him, but she didn’t seem to be comforted. “It’s going to be okay baby, I promise.”
Andrea nodded but Kala knew the woman was a breath away from a complete meltdown. Then a roar of rotors sounded from overhead and Kala saw an AH-6 attack helicopter scream over the trees they were hiding behind. Tom pointed his AR-15 into the sky but Kala jumped up and knocked it out of his hands, dumping Sophie, who protested loudly, onto the ground at the same time.
“No! They’ll shoot us!” Kala shouted over the sound. The helicopter flew past them, then banked hard and came around until it was hovering a hundred feet over their heads, buffeting them with rotor wash. They call it the killer egg.
“Helicopter!” Devon shouted excitedly. Sophie joined them and they both pointed upward, jumping around and waving at the bird. They did not wave back. Kala saw a stone-faced pilot with a black visor over his face, and sitting on a door-side bench was another helmeted man, this one holding an M4 assault rifle. On the chin of the tiny black helicopter was an m230 chain gun, a massive cannon that could send three hundred 30mil rounds at a target each second. Oh what fresh hell is this? she wondered. Then she was answered.
A huge voice boomed down at them from a giant megaphone.
“You are approaching the borderlands. Turn back now. Do not approach the border, or you will be neutralized.”
“We are not sick!” Andrea screamed up at the chopper. “We need help!”
Kala let her scream even though she knew no one could hear the woman up there. The ominous message from the helicopter repeated once more and then the black bird soared off, back into Kentucky.
Andrea slumped to the ground, crying at Tom’s feet. He tried to console her, but Kala could see that he was barely keeping it together. Sophie and Devon danced around together, watching the receding chopper with amazement. Mae leaned against James’s shoulder. Kala looked into the SUV. Dylan’s eyes were closed, but his chest was heaving and his face was still twisted in pain. She knew he had heard as well. Kala walked away from them, away from the SUV.
What the hell am I going to do now? She didn’t know, but wanted to see for herself. Kala picked up the binoculars from the hood of their truck and walked off into the woods. She didn’t try to stay hidden as she picked her way through the tangles of wild blackberries and thistle. It was a dense stand of trees, big pines. Before long daylight grew brighter on the other side of the trees and she approached the clearing. She leaned on a tree and gazed out at the Tennessee-Kentucky border. She saw now that it had been cleared. The landscape here was not naturally free of vegetation, but there were long stretches of black scorched earth where trees had once stood. Jesus, she thought, they burned it out.
Less than a half mile in the distance was the border. She saw the construction crews working on a tall fence. It must have been ten or twelve feet tall topped with some type of razor wire, she presumed. Supervising the construction and guarding this new border, was a long line of soldiers. They wore white protective suits. Tyvek she thought, to protect against mosquitoes and other biting disease vectors, smart. Watching through the binoculars, she examined the soldiers. With the white suits on she couldn’t tell if they were regular army or National Guard, but they looked disciplined. No one was just chatting idly and they kept their heads on a swivel. Kala’s gaze moved up to the closest watchtower. It was constructed of steel girders and a ladder that rose perhaps twenty feet into the air. There were two soldiers in the tower, one holding an M1-A1 assault rifle, the other holding a pair of binoculars. He was looking right at her. As Kala watched herself being watched, the man holding the binoculars lowered them, then held up one hand and flipped her off.
Goddammit.
*****
The road on either side was lined with trees. Where Kala pulled off was really a cleared out ditch used by utility workers to access the long row of electrical towers that ran through the countryside like tall skeletal transformers. They steered the big SUV farther from the road, far enough that any passersby might not be able to see them.
“What are we going to do?” James asked.
“For now we are setting up camp here. The sun will be down in an hour or so and then we’ll be able to see what kind of patrol they have going on up there.” She motioned toward the thick trees to the north. Just on the other side was the cleared out borderlands, lined with fencing and military troops.
“You think the patrols will dwindle at night?”
“Not really, but I want to get my facts in order before we make any decisions. Hey, come over here a minute,” Kala walked around the other side of the SUV and then out a few yards. She turned to face James.
“I know,” he said, before she even spoke. “He needs a hospital. But Kala, that’s the U.S. military out there, if they don’t want to let us in…”
Kala blew out a breath. “Yes, it’s the military, that’s bad. But, the U.S. military has never had to set up an intracontinental border in the modern age, which is what I’m assuming they're doing. The powers that be are trying to contain the infection to the south - which they should have done immediately when the outbreak in Florida broke out.”
“Exactly, we’re screwed,” James said, and kicked a clod of dry earth by his feet.
“So that leads me to believe that there’s still a government infrastructure in place in the north. Infrastructure means police, safety, and a hospital. Dylan needs help, I’m not going to let him die out here.”
James scratched at his head. “I feel like you’re not getting this. Infrastructure is what's keeping us out, Kala.”
“Oh yeah, sorry, I jumped around a little there. Our military has never had to maintain a
hard border within the states. The closest thing is Mexico, and they do a piss poor job with that. There’s going to be weak points, and we are going to exploit them. I know it's not ideal, and it falls a little low on the probability of success, but we will get through. They simply don’t have the kind of experience they need to deal with this kind of thing. James, I am NOT going to let Dylan die,” her look was hard as she stared down the young man. James was a year older than her, and smart, but Kala had guts. She would lead them to whatever salvation she could find.
James sighed, “All right boss lady, but I don’t want to survive the zombie apocalypse only to be gunned down by our own troops.”
“Me neither, James.”
Tom was coming around the SUV toward them. “Everything okay?”
“Everything is good. We’re going to set up real camp here for tonight.” Tom looked neither shocked nor excited, he simply nodded. “First I want to chop down some branches and camouflage the SUV from the road a little better. Then let's set up the tents on the other side. We’ll let the kids run around a little before we turn in.”
“Should I make a fire?” he asked hopefully. Tom had been honing his fire building skills while they were on the road. He could now get one started with just the little flint and steel in their survival pack.
Kala contemplated this. A fire was easily seen, but it also bolstered moral. People love sitting by a fire, watching a fire. It provides warmth and comfort, and also gives people a sense of power over their surroundings.
“Yes, a small one, but I want to burn it down before darkness completely sets in. We don’t want any unwanted visitors stumbling into our camp.”
Tom nodded and walked off, to be replaced by Mae, who quietly took one of James’s arms and stood next to him, looking down.
“It’s going to be all right, James, trust in me, okay?”
“We’ll trust you, Kala. Hey, how much worse can it really get?”
Chapter 15
Robert didn’t do a lot of shooting anymore, so his equipment was a little outdated. Of all his firearms, only one had a decent scope, the rest were twenty dollar throwaways from the bait store. Even in his prime, Robert had preferred to hunt pheasant and partridge, and while hunting those game birds he used birdshot and a barrel-sighted shotgun, no real need for a precision scope. Now he wished he had been a whitetail hunter, or at least more serious about his gear. He had always been too busy with work though, and with the exception of raccoons, foxes, and coyotes trying to get into his hives, he really didn’t have a reason to shoot anything.
A Dark Evolution (Book 2): Deranged Page 15
