Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed

by Molles, D. J.

  Because they hadn’t been able to shore up the defenses yet. They hadn’t been able to find enough wiring to get the high voltage lines on again.

  In a sort of horrified haze—horrified at the cosmic, not-so-funny-humor of the universe—he turned into the darkness and staggered towards the back of the closet, towards that bin filled with things he hadn’t been able to identify.

  He almost wanted to be wrong, because that would take some of the sting out of it. But as his groping hands touched the top of the bin, he grew more and more certain of what it was.

  The top of the bin was round. Wooden. About chest-height.

  Freeman fumbled beneath the top, and found that it wasn’t a bin at all. What he’d thought was a lid, was just the top of it. And as his fingers touched what lay beneath that wooden top, he found a dark little laugh bubbling up in his chest. It came out of him as a wheezing cough.

  You can’t be fucking serious.

  Not a bin at all. A spool, wound full of heavy-gauge wiring. More than enough to resurrect the high voltage lines on that battered eastern perimeter.

  But they’d searched! They’d searched for ten fucking days, trying to find supplies to get the defenses running again!

  Had no one checked this fucking closet?

  A clatter of claws.

  Freeman spun, staring at the sliver of light beneath the door.

  A huffing noise. The shadow of something beyond. It was smelling him from under the door.

  The door. Did you lock the door?

  Freeman stood there dumbly, not able to believe his own shortcomings. Here, this whole time, he’d considered himself an intelligent military man. A goddamned colonel. A colonel who had run into a place that had no retreat, and forgot to lock the door behind him.

  The door flew open.

  Dark shapes beyond.

  Light bloomed into the closet.

  Illuminating a long-handled torque wrench that sat, just to the side of the door.

  Freeman laughed again, unable to control himself.

  The primals lunged in at him, silent save for their haggard breaths.

  This whole time, Freeman thought—his last thought. This closet had everything you needed…

  SEVENTEEN

  ─▬▬▬─

  VICI

  Lee disconnected the satphone, Abe’s words ringing a low, hollow note through him.

  He was in the back of the command MATV, with Angela and Brinly.

  And Abby. Because where else would she be besides with her mother? He felt the eyes of Angela and Brinly on him, but Lee found himself looking at Abby instead.

  She jostled about with the movement of the vehicle over the potholed roads. She held her crumpled paperback, her brow furrowed in concentration, and Lee thought that maybe she was just concentrating on looking like she hadn’t heard the exchange between Lee and Abe.

  “So,” Angela prompted, softly. “Mosquero.”

  Lee stirred. Folded the satphone antenna. “Wiped out. Recently.”

  Abby glanced up from her book, then back down again, her frown deepening.

  Neither Angela nor Brinly gave any immediate reaction. They had expected as much based on the one-sided conversation that they’d heard.

  “No survivors?” Brinly asked, though it sounded like he already knew the answer.

  Lee shook his head. “Abe was engaged by a sniper. Lost two soldiers. Wounded a third. Sniper beat feet after that. They think it was Cornerstone. Most recent intel that we had put Cornerstone in Mosquero.”

  “Why would they do that?” Angela said, her voice harsh and bitter.

  “To deny us,” Lee answered. “That’s the most logical conclusion. Which means that they know we’re out here, and they know what we’re trying to do.”

  “They’re pulling back,” Brinly said. “Consolidating in Greeley and scorching the earth behind them. It’s a viable tactic for a desperate defense. Harsh, but effective.”

  Lee leaned forward onto his elbows. “We can’t let this out.”

  “What do you mean?” Angela asked.

  “I mean if other settlements find out that this is going on, they’re not going to risk joining us.”

  “We can’t just lie to them. They need to know what they’re up against.”

  “Angela, we have to keep it from them. Fear isn’t the way to get them to join up with us—they need to have a sense that we can actually pull this off. If they’re terrified to leave their families, they won’t join us. And then we’re dead in the water. All of what we’ve done will be for nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t join,” Abby piped up, her eyes still focused on the pages of her book. “Not if I heard what happened to Mosquero.”

  Angela tensed. “Abby. Honey. Read your book.”

  Abby raised defiant eyes. “I am reading my book.”

  “No, you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “I can’t help hearing you talk.”

  “But you can keep your opinions to yourself,” Angela snapped.

  Abby rolled her eyes and then settled them back on her book. “Just saying.”

  Angela brought her hands up to her face, her fingertips mashing her eyebrows. “It doesn’t feel right not to tell them the risks.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t feel right to you,” Lee said, keeping his voice neutral. “Strategically, it’s the better decision. If we want this movement to actually gain traction.”

  The radio in the front of the MATV cracked, receiving a transmission: “Recon One to command. We got a bit of a situation.”

  Lee straightened, looking to Brinly.

  The Marine nearest the radio snatched the handset and passed it back to Brinly. The old Marine put it to his ear. “Command to Recon One, what’s going on?”

  “Sir…uh…we’re about two miles out from Vici. We got a buncha people with guns here, and they don’t really want us to continue on to Vici. They’re demanding to speak to someone in charge.”

  Brinly’s brow furrowed. “Are they from Vici? And has there been any shots fired?”

  “Negative on the shots fired. And they won’t answer any of our questions.”

  Lee sidled forward in his seat. “We’re still twenty minutes out.”

  Brinly nodded. “Recon One, explain to them that we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Uh, yes, sir. I’ve explained that to them. They seem real hinked up by the concept of a convoy rolling into Vici. I, uh…well, one of them is right here. He wants to speak with you directly. Permission to put him on?”

  Brinly eyed Lee.

  Lee considered it for a brief moment, then nodded.

  “Go ahead, Recon One. Put them on.”

  A pause over the airwaves, followed by a very irritable sounding voice with a southern accent so thick that the words were almost unintelligible: “Who’m I speakin to?”

  Brinly blinked a few times, translating in his head before he responded. “My name is Major Brinly. I’m in charge of those men you have at gunpoint. I’d urge you to lower your weapons and discontinue hostilities.”

  “Fuck that, man, I dunno you.”

  “I assure you, we don’t mean any harm. All we want to do is talk.”

  “We talkin now.”

  “Sir,” Brinly growled. “We will be there in twenty minutes. I’d much prefer to do this face to face.”

  “Nah, you can shove at right up yer ass. Cain’t be rollin in with all your guns and shit. You wanna talk, you gonna talk one-on-one, yahear?”

  Lee cut a hand across his neck. “Stop the convoy,” he snapped. “We’ll roll in by ourselves.”

  Brinly lowered the handset. “They don’t sound overly friendly.”

  “Would you be overly friendly to an unknown military force when you’ve had Greeley breathing down your neck for five years?”

  Brinly’s lips thinned out. He brought the headset back to his ear. “I didn’t catch your name, sir.”

  “Cuz I din give
it. You comin or what?”

  Lee nodded. Brinly turned his head and hollered up to the front of the MATV. “Stop the convoy. We’re going in solo.” Then he transmitted with the handdset. “Yes, sir, we’re coming.”

  ***

  It was Lee in the center of the road. Brinly stood to his right, Angela to his left.

  The command MATV sat rumbling at idle behind them.

  Ahead of them, Recon One’s single pickup truck—a dusty, silver F-250—was parked right on the faded center line of this long and lonesome stretch of highway that headed north towards the little cluster of buildings on the horizon that Lee assumed was Vici, their objective.

  The four Marines of Recon One stood at the back of the F-250, and surrounding them were no less than a dozen men and women with rifles held in various poses of general hostility. The Marines themselves had their rifles hanging and their hands clear of their weapons, but weren’t in any deliberate positions of surrender.

  “You sure we should be bringing the president into the middle of this?” Brinly murmured as his squinted eyes surveyed the scene.

  Lee didn’t look, but he could feel Angela bristling.

  “You’re dreaming a dream if you think I’m waiting in the command truck, Brinly,” she said.

  Lee cast a sardonic look at Brinly. “Well, there you have it.”

  “Alright, fuck it,” Brinly steeled himself and began striding forward. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

  Half of the dozen armed strangers were focused on the Marines of Recon One, while the other half had become fixated on the three approaching figures. Lee scanned across the faces looking back at him, still about fifty yards distant. He wasn’t sure which one had done the talking over the radio, but he spotted a lean, surly-faced man that seemed itching to talk. He was out front and center from the others.

  Lee let his gaze travel out to the flatlands around them, and didn’t miss the poorly disguised lumps, perhaps a hundred yards out from the road. Two on the east side of the road, and two on the west. Snipers, though their haphazard attempts at ghillie weren’t quite cutting it. They were dark, forest green shapes amid the pale green and tan grasses of the plains.

  “You see the snipers?” Lee murmured.

  Brinly nodded. “Two on the right, two on the left.”

  Angela seemed to have spotted them as well. “That’s actually a good sign,” she observed. “At least we know that Vici isn’t populated by a bunch of pacifists.”

  “Yeah,” Lee grunted. “Provided this doesn’t end in gunfire, it’s super great.”

  “If it does, it’ll be mutual destruction,” Brinly noted. “Our gunner behind us will fuck them up, but I don’t see us getting back to the truck.”

  “Well,” Lee sighed. “We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t end in gunfire.”

  The lean man with the sour face stepped forward and raised his hand when they were about twenty yards off. “That’s far enough!” he hollered at them. “I’ll come to you. Don’t try nothing stupid or I’ll fuck your shit up.”

  Lee stopped, unable to contain a cold smirk. He decided that, should it come to a gunfight, the sour-faced man would be his meat shield.

  Then, poisonous doubt: Are you strong enough to restrain him now, you crippled old fuck?

  Two others accompanied the sour-faced man as he strode up to them. A man and a woman. They hung back a few paces, their rifles shouldered, but their muzzles held at a low ready. The man had an AK variant. The woman a scoped bolt-action. The sour-faced man had a run-of-the-mill AR with what looked like a ridiculously overpowered scope on it. Probably used to use it for blowing the heads off gophers. He seemed like the type of guy that would get a kick out of that.

  The sour-faced man stopped a few paces from Lee, his two companions behind him. His lips were pursed, like a draw-string bag all shut up tight. He had dark, beady eyes, just slits in the bright afternoon sun. He looked at Lee, then at Brinly, then at Angela.

  “Y’all the ones in charga them fucks in the pickup?”

  “Those ‘fucks’,” Brinly said. “Are United States Marines.”

  The man spat off to the side. “Ain’t no Yoo-nited States no more, so you can stow all that bullshit. Whadya want and why’re you here?”

  “We came to talk.”

  “We’re talkin. Whadya want?”

  Brinly exchanged a sidelong glance with Lee.

  But it was Angela who stepped up. “Sir, my name is Angela Houston.” She thrust her hand out to him.

  The man had what seemed to be a moment of panic. Here, a pretty lady had just put her hand out to be shaken. Old habits die hard. He reached for her hand at the same moment that he realized it went against his whole gruff demeanor.

  Too late. Angela grasped it and pumped. She smiled. “And you are?”

  “Dave,” the man said, and a smile cracked his visage. Then disappeared, almost self-consciously. He withdrew his hand. “Waitaminit. Back up…”

  Angela seemed to already know what question had popped into his head. “Yes, I’m Angela Houston. From what was formerly known as the United Eastern States.”

  Lee’s entire body tensed. Jaw locked. He became utterly aware of the distance from his right hand to the pistol on his hip. You shouldn’t have said that, dammit…

  Dave just stared at her. That tiny smile was nowhere to be found, completely buried under more doubtful scrutiny. “Right.”

  Angela charged ahead, wielding trust like a weapon. She gestured to the men standing to her right. “This is Lee Harden. And this is Major Brinly, a Marine, formerly of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.”

  Dave’s two companions looked at each other. Then at Dave. Then at the three people they’d just been introduced to. Then back to each other.

  Dave took a deliberate step back, as though pulling away from the truth. Which he obviously did not consider to be truthful at all. “You ain’t Angela Houston.”

  Angela quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Dave made a bitter raspberry noise. “Angela’s a scrappy bitch. She got bigger balls than any man I’ve ever met. You? Naw. You just…you just look like you done dropped the kids off at soccer practice. You ain’t no fighter.” Dave turned his gaze on Lee. “And you’re not Lee Harden.” This, Dave actually managed to laugh at. “Lee Harden’s killed men with his bare fuckin hands. You look like you’re struggling to stand up straight. You ain’t even gotta eye. You got a bum leg and a bum arm. You’re gotdamn beat to fuck. You spect me to believe you’re Lee Harden?” Another scoffing laugh. “You’re scrawny, half-starved, and you look like you need a gotdamn walker to get around.” He looked at Brinly. “You? I never even hearda you.”

  Brinly sighed. “Figures.”

  Angela’s smile became amused. And dark. “This man that you think needs a walker? He’d never use one. He’s too damn stubborn. And yes, he’s killed men with his hands before. I’ve seen him do it. And with his teeth. And with knives. And with bullets. He tore the Nuevas Fronteras cartel to pieces, just him and another man, and they were called Nadie y Ninguno. He rebelled against Greeley because they wanted to abandon the east coast, and he was the one that kept us alive, who beat back a horde of millions of infected.” Angela looked at Lee, and Lee had to look away, because her eyes had too much in them. Too many things for Lee to deal with in that moment. “The bum arm he got from chasing down an infected and killing it with a knife—it ripped his arm to shreds. The leg and the eye?” A shadow fell across Angela’s features. “Those he got protecting me, when Greeley invaded.”

  Dave shuffled uncomfortably. “So they did invade? They wiped out the United Eastern States?”

  Angela shook her head. “They invaded. But they didn’t wipe us out. They didn’t win. They only pissed us off. And now we’re here. And we want to talk.”

  Dave seemed on the cusp of believing, but then his dubious nature got the better of him, and his face hardened again, like magma cooling to volcanic rock. “Aight. You make a lot of claims,
lady. But I gotta way to pull out the truth. I got people who’ll know whether you’re lyin or not.”

  “Take us to them,” Angela said.

  “Angela…” Lee growled.

  She turned to look at him. “This is why we’re here. You wanted to talk to the people of Vici? This is how we do it.”

  Lee spoke low, though he knew that Dave could hear him anyways. “You wanna just waltz into a bunch of people with questionable loyalties?”

  Dave took umbrage and spat again. “Questionable loyalties my ass. Fuck Greeley and fuck President Briggs. And fuck his Cornerstone goons to boot. But fuck you too, because I still think you’re full of shit. But we gon see.”

  Angela held eye contact with Lee. “You want them to trust you, Lee? You gotta show them trust first.”

  Lee flashed his teeth in irritation. Then forced his eyes to Dave. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go with you. Just me.”

  “Lee…” Angela warned.

  Lee spun on her, holding up a finger. “Just me. Don’t argue.”

  Angela’s face was stiff with irritation. But she had to see the logic in it. There was no sense in all of them walking into the lion’s den. One beat-to-fuck Lee Harden was better than the whole of their leadership. The resistance could move on without Lee. But they couldn’t survive without all three of them.

  She turned away from him, but did not object any further.

  Lee stepped forward. “Who are these people that you think can confirm who I am?”

  Dave merely smirked at him. “You’ll see.”

  EIGHTEEN

  ─▬▬▬─

  MYTHS AND LEGENDS

  Lee’s eyes coursed over the settlement as they approached it. He knelt in the back of a pickup truck—a little white Toyota that had come rocketing out of Vici after Dave had called in on a little two-way radio.

  So far, what he saw was good.