The men found the headquarters building to be unguarded, and no one challenged their right to enter. Once inside, Scott saw the floor was packed with dead bodies. Some of the corpses looked like the prototypical skinny, with filth-encrusted scraps of clothing that would have reeked well before the wearers lost all bowel control from the arsenic poisoning. Others, however, appeared ready to step on stage at a rap video with their garish, chunky, gold necklaces and full sleeve tattoos bearing the most obscene phrases and images.
“Alright,” Sergeant Barden announced, “we have to clear this area for the investigators, so let’s start hauling out the bodies and build a mound outside.”
“We burning them?” Mike asked, his voice questioning but not challenging.
“Yeah. Eventually, we’ll need to dispose of them all by fire, according to the docs. Too much chance of contamination or spreading more diseases than you can shake a stick at. That a problem?”
“No problem, sergeant,” Scott replied absently. “There’s some flatbed dollies around here we can use for hauling the corpses out. And I’ve got five gallons of gasoline here,” he continued, holding up the distinctive red can.
So, within ten minutes they were taking turns throwing bodies on the growing bonfire when the colonel’s lead investigator came into the building. Scott saw the white-faced man, a lieutenant in the Guard named Gamboa, who’d been a police detective in his civilian life.
“How long until we can get in here?” the investigator asked.
“You can bring your guys in here now if you want. We left the papers and that radio where we found them, so it’s all yours. We just…needed to be here for the start. To make sure they were really dead.”
Scott looked down, slightly embarrassed by the emotion that finally began to reappear in his voice as he warmed to the subject.
“And are they? All dead, I mean?”
At that question, Keith passed the two men pushing a flatbed dolly bearing two men covered in crusted feces. One stared straight up at the ceiling with clouded eyes, while the other still twitched ever so slightly as the four-wheeled dolly struck obstructions laying in the floor.
“Hey, Keith, are they all dead?”
Keith shrugged before answering.
“Mostly dead? I’m still trying to get one to really scream when they hit the fire, but best I’ve gotten so far is a moan or two.”
Scott nodded, then turned to the investigator. “Dead enough, anyway.”
“Man, you guys are sick,” the investigator said without thinking, and Scott had to fight down the urge to punch him. Which would have been a mistake, since the investigator looked like a six-and-a-half-foot tall wall of solid muscle. Instead, he took a calming breath before replying.
“No, lieutenant, sick is holding down a child and raping her, while one of your buddies uses a hacksaw to remove her arm for the stew pot. I saw that happen, right here in this camp.” Again, Scott stopped talking for almost a minute, getting his anger under control before continuing. “So, you might want to choose your words with more care in the future. Some of these men with me might take offense. And trust me, sir, you never want to offend any of these guys.”
Lieutenant Gamboa got the message and didn’t say another word as the men continued to carry out the bodies and fed them to the growing pile of flames. Human bodies, as a rule, don’t make for good fire logs, but the men kept finding more piles of filthy clothes or broken packing crates to add to the flames.
And before they finished and left the cleanup job to the guys with the bulldozers, Keith found his screamer. The thing that used to be a man was so pale from his sickness that none of the fighters felt sure of his race, but Scott recognized him from the gaudy, gold necklace that hung from his bony neck as well as the tattoos on his now-pallid eyelids.
Without zombie Walter’s rattled mumblings, Scott wouldn’t have known his name. The description he’d given wasn’t great, but Scott had pieced it together. He’d been evident during the observation teams’ long hours watching the camp, and Scott remembered seeing the little cockroach commit several murders as well as other acts of blatant depravity. The others, even his fellow gang members, seemed to shrink from his presence.
“Marshawn, right? I’m surprised and pleased you managed to hang on this long,” Scott said as he stood over the disgusting form, now wracked with excruciating cramps and curled in a fetal position.
“Doc…” he managed to mumble, but Scott heard enough.
“You want a doctor? No, I don’t think we can spare one right now, so you’ll have to wait. Keith, you mind taking Marshawn over to the waiting room? The special heated one?”
Keith didn’t mind, and even helped Marshawn into the special waiting room they’d prepared. Marshawn, so far gone into dementia from the poison still clawing at his body, didn’t realize what was going on until the fire began to chew at his bones. Then, Keith got his scream as Marshawn howled and the scouts just watched.
“There you go, Keith,” Scott announced, “I knew you’d get your screams. You just have to work a little harder sometimes.”
Finally, too fast, really, the screams gave way to hissing moans, and the scouts turned as a man and headed for the gate.
Let somebody else clean up the rest of the mess. They’d done their part, at great cost, and kept their promise. To the dead, and the living.
EPILOGUE
Scott sat in his new living room and looked around, inspecting the photographs hanging on the walls and framed on his oiled wooden desk. Most of the pictures chronicled his daughter Isabella’s first eight years on Earth, but a few held snapshots of family and friends.
With the help of some good neighbors and more than a little strategic reallocation of some lumber and supplies just gathering dust in town, the once open and drafty barracks had been much expanded, and converted into small one and two bedroom apartments. They lacked modern conveniences, of course, but very few places had electric lights or running water, even at the main Keller home place.
A month after the destruction of the two renegade camps, the allied communities in the Gentry/Fayetteville area were still recovering from their losses. Some former residents were drifting back into older, existing towns, like Gentry and Siloam Springs, as winter approached, while new communities like Kellerville continued to grow.
Lowell was completely abandoned, except for foraging parties mining the businesses for much needed supplies. No food, of course, but as time went on, people discovered they were running out of everything. Soap, clothes, deodorant, and everything else. After the destruction of the Walmart Distribution warehouses outside Bentonville, due in large part to internal feuds and power struggles, folks continued to look for those other amenities, in addition to any stores of food.
“You ready to go get some dinner?”
The question caught Scott woolgathering, and he looked up with a small grin as Sarah stood at the door, examining the newly decorated space. Even with two bedrooms, a living room and a rudimentary bathroom, the whole thing barely occupied seven hundred square feet. Scott’s first apartment in college had been bigger, but the builders didn’t waste space on such things as a kitchen or dining room. Meals remained largely communal affairs for the citizens of Kellerville.
“Yes, but come in first,” Scott finally replied. “I can tell you are eager to check things out.”
“Well, it looks different furnished,” Sarah acknowledged. “Going to be enough room for you and Bella Bean together?”
“Oh, we will be rattling around in this big old place,” Scott joked, waving expansively. “Might need to take in boarders just to get the right level of crowded to feel comfortable.”
Sarah laughed at the truth in Scott’s words. Personal space took on a whole new meaning when you were stacking people in to keep them out of the weather, and many became acclimated to the tight confines. This much room might seem like an extravagance to some.
Sarah, interested in getting a look at some of the phot
ographs, drifted into the living room and took a moment to examine the new, old-fashioned wood stove also added to the living room. New as is in recently manufactured, but based on a classic design. Even though it wasn’t built to cook on, Sarah admitted the hot water reservoir made a nice touch.
And then there were the photographs. Because Scott never made any noise about needing personal space, Sarah incorrectly assumed he wasn’t the kind of person to hold on to such mementoes. In fact, the man had thousands of real, physical photographs in storage, and Sarah quickly found herself drawn into the old pictures.
“Are these your parents?” she finally asked, pointing at one photograph that looked to be fifty or sixty years old. It was a wedding picture, and the man and woman in their old-fashioned finery looked so pleased with themselves.
“Yeah, from their wedding day. We’ve all got a print of that. Well, I know Darwin has one too. Gary probably threw his away years ago out of spite.”
Sarah absorbed that observation and let it go. Families were weird, she thought.
“I love the pictures you have of Isabella. You must have hundreds from when she was just a baby.”
“I was a little crazy with the camera back then,” Scott agreed.
“Well, I’m sure you are glad you have them now. Most of the pictures I had of the girls died with the computer at home, you know.”
“You just need to start taking new ones is all.”
“Just that simple?” Sarah asked. This was a new side to Scott, she thought.
After being so depressed with the horrible losses their team suffered at War Eagle, she was worried that he might do something impulsive. Maybe even self-destructive. The deaths of Arness and Kevin seemed to hit him the hardest, and Yalonda’s reaction to the news, while not unexpected, didn’t help. She blamed herself for not being there, and maybe Scott a little too, for sending her away.
“Look, I know I haven’t been a lot of fun to be around lately,” he said, and then grimaced. “Not that there’s much fun to begin with, but I’ve been thinking about things a lot these last few days. Weeks, I guess. I guess moving into a new place makes me more introspective than usual.”
“And…” she prompted.
Scott paused, then gestured for Sarah to take a chair around the low coffee table. After she was in the comfortable old chair, Scott moved to join her in the twin to her own seat.
“And I can’t think of anything I would have done different at War Eagle.” He said the words like he was releasing a great burden off his chest. “Yeah, maybe I could have brought more troops, or rigged up some way to arrange artillery support, but neither was really practical at the time. Also, you know I’ve spent some time talking to the ladies in your group. Answering questions and such, right?”
The Survivor Support Network was something Sarah had started after bringing home the latest round of sexually abused survivors from War Eagle. Not victims, she insisted, but survivors. Most of the women looked to Sarah as a kind of role model, and she’d found that letting them tell her their stories seemed to help with the healing.
One source of tension, no surprise, remained having to be in close proximity to men. Most, but not all, of their tormentors had been men. So, since Scott had some credit with most of the women anyway as being one of their rescuers, Sarah had him come by to just sit and provide some periodic interaction with the ladies. As Sarah expected, Scott mostly just sat there and listened. That was his way.
“Anyway, I’ve heard some of their stories, and they just break my heart. But, those stories also remind me of something that happened just before Sergeant Barden showed up. When I was trying to get the rest of the men out before we were overrun.”
Sarah fought to keep the shock off her face at this revelation. No one had ever mentioned this conversation but then, only a few had lived who could actually tell the tale. So, she sat in rapt attention as Scott described the scene.
“Thinking of their answers made me realize that we all volunteered to be there, and that each and every one of us was willing to spend our lives to stop this evil. I remember Arness was pissed because he only got to kill a few with his knife when we got to the tents. And how Tommy and Ben refused my orders to evacuate when it looked like we were going to die.”
Scott paused.
“They were all so brave, and determined. How can I not honor and respect their bravery, Sarah? How can I diminish their sacrifice? Thinking about that willingness to fight to the end has made me adjust my attitude, if you will.”
“So, what comes next?” Sarah asked, and it was a question Scott found himself asking as well.
Scott motioned the woman to grab a drink from the glass of water next to the chair as he tried to gather his thoughts.
“Well, I’ve listened to the colonel’s proposal. It makes sense, of course. I love how he’s embraced the ideals of a state-wide citizens’ militia, and has the balls to call it that.”
“So, are you planning to volunteer?” Sarah asked, her voice cautious as she waited for Scott’s answer.
“Yeah, I am. He wants more scouts trained, and I volunteered to start a school of sorts. Here, or nearby. The colonel’s getting a lot of new recruits coming out of the woodwork, now that this Liberation Army has been defeated.”
“More like exterminated,” Sarah affirmed.
They’d taken no prisoners from the camp in Lowell, but a few singed survivors out of War Eagle confirmed the Devil’s pact between the two groups. The Homeland troops, and most of them had been FEMA contract guards hired months or years before the lights went out, armed and directed the gang of thugs and cannibals that’d composed the Liberation Army. All under the guise of pacification, as the new Regional Director sought to eliminate the surviving farmers in the area as being undesirables. Who was supposed to grow the food or raise the livestock for the next harvest hadn’t been addressed in any of the official-looking literature or PowerPoints the tech boys recovered from the ashes.
Sarah suppressed a sigh of relief at Scott’s announcement. She’d been worried Scott was going to join one of the volunteer groups going north to assist Joplin. The town, while still under siege by rogue government forces, remained a beacon of liberty for many, but the fighting remained fierce.
Then Scott looked to Sarah, and the woman felt her face flush a bit at his scrutiny.
“And what are you planning, Sarah?”
The woman took a deep breath before answering.
“Hazel has asked me to take on more responsibilities in training up the new women. Mainly the ones from the camps. Help with their basic introductory courses in self-defense, and organize them for the canning and food preparation classes she is working up with Leslie and the other ladies. Candace, too, now that the baby has come. You know, just sticking to our traditional female roles.”
That got a snort from Scott and he leaned closer.
“Yes, I can see that. Traditional homemaking roles. Knitting and weaving, too? Also, a little sniper training on the side, and maybe an after-school program teaching basic demolition manufacturing? I’m sure Miss Manners would be pleased.”
There was a pause as the two sat, simply staring at each other. They could joke back and forth now with ease, even as each dealt with their own ghosts.
“How’re you sleeping, Scott?”
Scott’s eyes widened just perceptibly, then he relaxed as he remembered some of their shared revelations. Things he’d told Sarah that no one else knew.
“Better. That one nightmare, the one I told you about, it seems to have gone away. Of course, now I have new ones to replace it but still, I count that as improvement.”
Sarah knew what he meant. No more nightmares about Isabella, or at least, not the same as before. Progress of a sort, she decided.
“Well, we better get to it,” Scott announced, rising to his feet. “Don’t want to keep the cooks waiting. Or the assistant chefs, for sure.”
Since all three of their daughters were on the kitchen helper
rotation, they knew being late would result in at least mild scolding. Scott, nearly to the door, turned and glanced back at the sheet of paper he’d abandoned on the coffee table.
“Something important?” Sarah asked.
“No, just a report I was reading. Diesel stock levels and fuel allocation plans.”
“Are we going to be short after all?” Sarah asked. “I know I heard the colonel has been concerned. Moving all those troops up here from the fort, and now getting the reinforcements to Joplin, hasn’t been easy on his reserves. Plus, you know, running convoys back and forth to McAlister for ammunition.”
“Just like I said. Traditional homemaking work.”
Scott said it with a grin and shut the door. Despite the dangerous actions of one spy already, he wasn’t worried about anybody reading his mail. The paper merely outlined the problem, not their intended solution. And that spy, and her family, were no longer his problem.
“Yes,” he continued, “fuel’s going to be a problem later. We have enough for now, and the airport has a massive supply of JP8. Humvees can burn that stuff, as will most of the resurrected military vehicles, which saves the diesel for mainly farm use. Darwin and Bruce have confirmed we have enough diesel to finish up the last of the harvest, the fields we can still get into, and prep for next spring. Then, though, my brother has his concerns.”
“So, what’s the answer? You wouldn’t be this relaxed if there wasn’t one. We are not going back to plowing with mules, Scott.”
“Well, I’ve been talking to Stan, and he’s been talking to some other folks,” Scott continued as they walked down the long narrow hallway, passing other apartments with the same layout.
“And?”
“Well, you know the provisional state government they’ve set up down in Texas? You know, over at that college town there?”
“Nacogdoches? Yes, I know it. Had a heck of a reputation as a party school back in the day. Probably not so much anymore.”
Scott had to chuckle before continuing.
Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Page 33
