by D. J. Molles
Kensey had already curtly informed Harper that his Marines would handle the night watch. At first reaction, Harper was almost a little miffed that Kensey clearly lacked trust in Harper’s people. But after he pushed his pride away, he realized he would get to sleep the entire night, as well as the rest of the people in his group. He didn’t think he remembered the last time any of them slept an entire night. Probably sometime back at Camp Ryder.
Kensey posted two of his Marines outside. Their bivy sacks sat empty. Harper peered through the glass doors leading outside, but he could see nothing beyond those panes but the mottled shapes of darkness and midnight shadows. The moon gave a cold, silver cast to everything. It stared down at them from a cloudless night sky.
Kensey was slouched in a plush chair when Harper entered, holding a quiet conversation with one of his men. Dylan was propped on the hearth, dishing out something dubious he’d made in a pot by the fire. He and Charlie chattered noisily, and Julia was sitting in another chair, pretending to listen to Dylan and Charlie’s antics, though she was watching Kensey closely.
It almost brought a wry grin to Harper’s face. But Julia had been… confrontational lately. He wasn’t sure why, or what was brooding inside her, but he didn’t like it. He loved Julia in some cross of fatherly and brotherly feelings. But he missed the Julia he’d met three months ago. She’d been as headstrong then as she was now, but with benevolence.
Now she just seemed headstrong and reckless.
If Julia wasn’t careful, she could drive a wedge between Harper and the Marines. And they needed the help. They weren’t going to get this done on their own, and Harper didn’t see anyone else around with the resources to help. So the situation called for a bit of politicking. Not Harper’s strong suit, but you don’t get to be vice president of a bank without some schmooze in you.
Harper dumped the load of cherrywood on the ground next to the hearth, causing a clatter. Then he reached down and threw a few medium-sized pieces into the dimming fire. He shook out his arms and stretched his back. The others were looking at him, as though he’d been purposely noisy to gain their attention.
“Armoire,” he said casually with a nod at the pile of wood he had brought. “Full of fur coats. Kensey, you seem like a man who might look good in a mink coat.”
Kensey humored him with a smile.
His Marines chuckled behind him. One of them called quietly, “Pimp.”
Kensey shook his head and tilted the brim of his cap back. “Only if it comes with a top hat and a cane.”
Harper shrugged. “Sorry, I’m keeping those.” Harper took the opportunity to find Julia’s gaze. “Would you mind helping me with the rest of it? There’s just a bit more than I can carry.”
She raised an eyebrow, then hoisted herself from her chair. “Yeah, I kinda guessed there would be.” She looked at Charlie and Dylan. “One of you want to help?”
Harper interrupted. “We should be able to get it all between you and me. Dylan, you keep dishing out whatever you made. It smells good and I’m fucking starving.”
Dylan, who was half on his feet, looked hastily between Julia and Harper, then settled himself back to his seat and his task. “No problem.”
Julia eyed Harper with something like suspicion, but followed him when he delved back into the darkness of the house. They stepped into the large atrium. The twisting staircase that rose up to the second floor. Tile floors. Expensive-looking wooden banisters following it up. A monstrous chandelier hanging dark and looming over the whole thing, seeming more like a death trap now. Harper kept eyeing it, waiting for it to crash on him, skewering him in a million places with brass and crystal.
But it didn’t fall. It hung silently, as the whole house was silent except the living room directly in front of the fire. They took the stairs, stepping lightly without meaning to. When you were squatting in another house, and the darkness was around you and all was silent, it could make any man feel like a thief in the night, and even if their business was honest, they hunched their shoulders and padded lightly.
Harper had a small flashlight that he used to light their way. The glow was dim and yellow, but bright enough to guide them into the main bedroom. It was a fairly large thing, but not overly extravagant, Harper thought. Despite the ominous chandelier and the fur coats in the massive armoire, he had not seen a lot in the house that indicated extravagance. Whoever had lived there had definitely not been afraid to spend their money, but they seemed more like the horse-and-acreage type of wealthy, as opposed to the matching-Maseratis type of wealthy.
The bed was king-sized—naturally—but Harper avoided looking at it. It was the one spot in the house where there was evidence of something bizarre and horrible happening. The sheets were tousled and ripped off the bed. The mattress was torn open. There were dark stains that looked like blood to him, and splatters of it on the ceiling directly above. But as far as he could tell, the rest of the room was spotless.
Two nightstands. Two lamps. Two dressers. Pictures of a man on one. Pictures of a woman on the other. Pictures of both of them on the walls. The man with a bored, pacifying look in his eyes, the woman with a twinkle in hers, as though she were already thinking of where she would frame the photos and hang them on her walls. Happy couple, at least for the photographer. No kids, it seemed like. A chocolate Lab in one of the pictures, but it was the only evidence of an animal Harper had seen and it made the presence of it in that photograph seem like a prop.
Harper turned his back to the disturbed bed. The destroyed armoire lay in pieces at his feet. He shut off the flashlight to save batteries. They could see by the light of the moon coming through the windows, although just barely. Julia was facing him, hands in her pocket, half her face illuminated by the bluish, mercurial lighting. But the one side of the face showed that she wanted to know why Harper had pulled her aside.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
He smiled, but tiredly. “Okay? Rarely. Not with us, anyway. We don’t have that kind of luck. But I guess if you’re asking me if everything is status quo, then yes. We are still afloat…” He took a breath and shifted his weight. He had trailed off, and now he just stared at her for a long moment, watching her face become more and more expectant. Waiting for him to finish his sentence. But that sentence was dead in the water. He went in another direction. “How are you?”
Her teeth seemed to glow. He couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace. “How am I? Why, I’m fine, good sir. And yourself?”
“I’m serious,” he said, and his voice was very serious indeed. “I’m worried.”
“You’re worried.”
“About you,” he clarified.
“How so?”
“Julia.” Harper’s voice took on a cautious tone. The voice of a wise man treading lightly. “I’m not trying to start an argument with you. But that kind of goes to my point.”
Eyebrows up.
“You seem… very confrontational,” he said.
She huffed, a sound of pure defense. “I don’t think I’m any more confrontational than usual.”
Harper shrugged, not wanting to push it. As he had said to her, he didn’t want an argument. He’d simply wanted to give her a chance to clear the air, if she wanted to. He certainly wasn’t going to drag it out of her. But then he thought about Nick. He thought about how he’d given every warning sign and signal and Harper had ignored them all because they were all stressed out. What made him so special?
And then Nick had shot his wife to death, because he didn’t want her to have to live in this world. And then he stuck the barrel of his rifle in his mouth and scattered his brains across the side of the military truck they’d commandeered. Harper thought about it often and with remorse. He thought that if he might have intervened, might have put a stop to whatever was going on inside Nick’s head, if he’d only gone and talked to him, he could have kept him from going over the edge.
Was Julia like Nick? He didn’t want to give her the chance to
become like him, though. If there was something growing black in her mind, he wanted to nip it in the bud now. Figure out what was bugging her—What’s fucking bugging her? Try the whole goddamned world. You act like you’re removed from it all, old boy, but you’re just as fucked as everyone else. Perhaps you should remove the log from your own eye…
“Look…” Harper rubbed the bald spot on the top of his head once again, like he was checking to see if it was still there. Then he stooped for a stack of wood. “I didn’t mean anything by it. If you don’t feel like talking, I ain’t gonna force you. You just seemed a little outta sorts. That’s all. Forget I said anything.”
He gathered up an armful, avoiding tacks and nails that protruded from the wood. It still smelled of musty old fur coats. Harper had never liked that smell. Reminded him of dusty attics and crumbling relics and his grandfather, who drank too much and never had a kind word during their yearly forced visits for the holidays.
He straightened, hugging the load of wood to his chest. Julia was still standing there. She had not gone for any wood, but was simply regarding it like she might be trying to come up with a game plan for how she was going to gather it. Or maybe she was considering other things.
“You gonna help me with this or what?” he asked quietly.
When she looked up at him he could just barely make out that she was looking right into his eyes and there was the slightest silver glimmer at the bottom of the one eye that caught the light. She blinked rapidly. Harper stared back, quietly shifting his grip on the wood.
“You remember the night at Camp Ryder, right before we left for Sanford? Before we lost Jake and before Lee found that den?” she said, her voice low, almost tremulous. “We were all around the fire that night. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you’d already gone to bed. But it was me and LaRouche and Lee and there was just a little bit of whiskey left in this bottle and we were passing it around and it was really quiet. And then LaRouche said something. He said, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna make it.’ ” She smiled but she looked terrified. “He had a feeling, you know? He just knew. And now he’s gone.”
“Julia…”
“And I had that same feeling. I had it then and I’ve had it ever since. Like I’m walking a tightrope and I don’t know how long I can keep my balance.”
“You’re not going to die.”
Julia looked fierce for a moment. “Don’t you fucking say that, Harper. Don’t ever. And don’t tell me that you’re watching my back or some horseshit like that. You think LaRouche didn’t have people watching his back? What about Jake?”
Harper nodded and spoke softly. “You know what, Julia? You’re right. I can’t tell anyone that they’re not going to die. Because how it happens seems to be completely fucking random to me. And I don’t think it’s beholden to gut feelings and hunches.” He paused to take a breath and moisten his lips. “Lee ever talk about his parents with you?”
She seemed unsure where this was going. “No.”
“Did you know that they both died?” Harper laughed, humorlessly. “Both of them died in the same car wreck. And do you know when this happened? When Lee was deployed to Afghanistan. He told me it was one of the bloodiest months for US troops in that war. He was in firefights almost every day of the week. Never got a scratch on him. On the other side of the world, in the safest country on earth, his parents get crushed by an eighteen-wheeler on the interstate.”
Julia pursed her lips. “While that’s an uplifting story…”
“My point is that you don’t know when it’s going to happen, Julia. It happens when it happens. It’s not your job to try and guess when your clock runs out. It’s your job to keep fighting until it does. Just because the world has gone to shit doesn’t mean that you’re destined to die young. Just like when the world was safe you weren’t guaranteed a full life. You know, I wake up some days, and I have the same feeling? I’m one hundred percent positive that today is my day. It’s happened more times now than I can remember. But somehow I’m still here. So if you think there’s something to your gut feeling, you’re fucking wrong, Julia. You’re completely wrong. And I don’t want you being reckless and rash and constantly picking fights because you think you don’t have much time left.”
She made a sucking sound with her teeth, but finally she nodded. “Fine. But if you think my dislike of Sergeant Kensey has anything to do with this…”
“Does it not?”
“No.”
“You just don’t mesh?”
She shrugged. “Sure. You could say that.”
“Okay,” Harper said, rolling his eyes. “Well, regardless of your personal feelings, he’s relayed what he’s seen to Colonel Staley and it sounds like they’re meeting tomorrow to hash things out.”
“You don’t think it will be too late?”
Harper shrugged. “It’ll be too late when it’s too late.”
An amused smile. “You’re very Zen about everything.”
He used his leg to hoist the wood back up high on his torso. “Yeah, well… it’s that or go apeshit.”
“Am I apeshit?” She stooped and began to gather wood.
“No.” Harper shook his head. “You’re just crazy. But that’s okay. You can come back from crazy.”
He looked for a reaction from her—hopefully a friendly one—but she seemed involved in her task now. Harper thought he might point out that it was a joke, but then figured she knew that. He waited for her to gather the rest of the shattered armoire, his own load beginning to weigh uncomfortably in his arms. When she had the rest of it save a few bits and pieces, they started down the dark hallway again.
As they descended the stairs, Harper could hear the slight creak of the back door opening. There were hushed voices and then the sound of a quiet scrambling. Harper craned his neck back toward Julia and he could see from the look on her face that she had heard it, too. He picked up the pace, hurrying to the bottom of the stairs, where he had a clear view into the living room.
Charlie and Dylan were standing there, rifles in hand. All the Marines had posted up on windows that faced the back and the driveway, their rifles in hand. One had his helmet on, a set of night-vision goggles rocked down over his eyes, scanning through the lower corner of a large window. Sergeant Kensey was closing the steel doors to the fireplace, hissing and baring his teeth as he negotiated the hot metal.
He’s hiding the light, Harper knew with sudden certainty. So somebody doesn’t see it.
Kensey saw Harper and Julia approaching with their bundles of wood and he held a finger up in front of his lips and with the other hand out, palm down, motioned for them to put the wood down. Harper knelt on crackling knees, wincing as sore muscles and aching tendons complained against him—morning and night were the worst—and he slowly, carefully, released his pile of wood onto the ground. It wasn’t loud by any means, but in the sudden, breathless silence, the muted clack of a few boards on the floors sounded like gunshots.
“Get behind something,” Kensey said, the words just breath coming out of him.
Harper glanced over his shoulder and saw that Julia had freed her hands up as well and was slinging her rifle off her back and into her shoulder. Harper followed suit, getting down into a crouched position and duck-walking to where Kensey was kneeling behind one of the plush chairs.
The Marine looked at him, eyes wide. “Stop moving!” he hissed.
Harper froze. In the dark. The warmth of the invisible fire still playing on the left side of his face as he stared at the glass back door with everyone else. He summoned enough air into his lungs to whisper so quietly that he barely even heard himself. “What the fuck is going on?”
He wasn’t sure whether Kensey actually heard him, or whether the other man had just figured that Harper might want to know, but Kensey turned to face him, moving slowly and steadily. When they made eye contact, Kensey pointed very deliberately toward the back door. “Infected. A lot of them.
”
Harper felt his pulse throttling up. His legs began to tremble. Partly from the strain of his squatted position, and partly from the sudden dump of adrenaline through his system. “Do they know we’re in here?”
Kensey just shook his head, then turned back around, welding his rifle to his cheek.
Harper’s head was almost lost in a sudden cloud of panic. He didn’t like the term panic, because it made him feel like a bitch, but that’s what it was. His mind couldn’t seem to focus on the task at hand. His body felt like it was getting ready to explode on him. He had an almost irresistible urge to run while they were still out of sight, and it butted heads with the part of him that wanted to hunker down because he knew that with his luck the second he stood up to run, those things would suddenly appear and give chase. Besides, he couldn’t run, could he? No. Even if he’d been by himself and didn’t have a responsibility to Charlie or Dylan or Julia or any of the others, he still could not have run. Because he was trapped in this house. Trapped like a fucking rat. The only solution was to lie very still and hope to God the bad things didn’t see you.
Bad things. Bad things. Like a kid trapped on his bed because of what’s underneath it.
Some analytical part of him managed to shrug off the soaking of stress chemicals coursing through him. It seemed to calmly raise its finger with a question. Very politely. Excuse me, when you’re done having a panic attack, you may want to address what is going to happen if the infected try to get into the house.
Harper forced his breathing in and out, steadily.
We hope they give up and go away, he told himself.
And if they get in? If they see us? Let’s go worst-case scenario here, Billy-Boy. The fight’s on. What are you going to do?
