The Remaining: Allegiance

by D. J. Molles

  Then they were on the road, heading in the opposite direction.

  She moaned a low, miserable sound.

  “I’ll give you something for the pain in a minute,” Kensey said, mistaking her moan for one of pain.

  But it was simple despair.

  Eden was lost.

  SEVENTEEN

  INSIGHT

  LAROUCHE SLEPT SOUNDLY FOR the first time in a very, very long time. And perhaps that was why the first gunshots did not wake him up, or even enter into his dreams. It was like his mind had been searching for a path where it could disconnect itself from reality, and had finally found its way out of the briar patch and could not be called back. It was off in another realm.

  But like a dog on a leash, it was eventually yanked back. Freedom was just a cruel illusion.

  His eyes shot open, cognizant that something was happening and he was missing it.

  Claire was beside him, both hands on his chest, shaking him violently and yelling. “Wake up! Wake up! We’re being shot at!”

  The interior of the box truck loomed out darkly in front of him and he could see out beyond the half-closed door. It was dark out but there was fire and flashlights blazing. The shapes of men swept shadows over them. The gunshots were rapid, obliterating, overpowering.

  They popped and boomed all around and then something that felt very near to the box truck exploded, heavy and resonant, poking his eardrums even inside the truck and the concussion hitting him all at once. He watched the view from the small opening at the back end of the box truck and it flashed bright silver. Shrapnel peppered the side of the box truck, a few of the larger pieces punching jagged holes through.

  Claire cried out and lurched onto LaRouche, twisting around, one hand trying to reach around to her back. LaRouche’s mind was still a foggy blank. He knew what all of these things meant—the answer was dawdling around in his brain somewhere—but it wouldn’t come to him in that moment, so it was almost like none of it was happening. It felt dreamy.

  He pulled himself upright and hunched over Claire’s form, as calm as though this were some simulation that he knew he could not be hurt from. He took her by the shoulder and rolled her onto her belly, where he could see what she was trying to reach for. It took a moment for him to find the tear in the fabric of her clothing. The blood had not begun to seep through just yet. Hot shrapnel sometimes was like that. It lodged like a cork and sometimes seared the blood vessels closed so that only a little ooze of red escaped.

  But he found the wound. It was on her left shoulder blade. Not deep, or large, he thought. Most shrapnel couldn’t make it through bones as easily as bullets could. It didn’t stop it from hurting, though. Claire was writhing under his hands.

  “It burns! Holy Jesus it burns!” she sobbed.

  “You’re okay,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own.

  Something is happening. What’s happening?

  We’re being attacked.

  Yes, but…

  Another enormous explosion rocked the world around them, but it was not as close as the first. Again his eyes went to the box truck and saw that some of the others were hunkered down, lying prone with their hands over their heads. Some of the women were screaming, as well as some of the men. Others were surging out of their piles of blankets looking like madmen, half naked, anger glistening in wide-open eyes as they scrambled for their weapons.

  Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap.

  Spears of dull red light shot through the side of the box truck. The men that were standing tried to hunker down. Some of them made it, others twitched and crumpled. It was hard to tell if they were hit until they didn’t get up again. The ones that were still alive started crawling for the open door.

  The sound was sharp, staccato. But controlled. Not some asshole laying on an automatic trigger. Controlled bursts, LaRouche thought. He could feel the connection being made in the back of his brain, but the fog of sleep and panic were muddling things. He was already moving toward the open back end of the box truck with everyone else and he realized with something like relief that his hand was latched on to Claire’s and she was moving with him.

  Just get the fuck out of here.

  That was the first time that the reality of the situation started to dawn on him, breaking through the grogginess of his sleep. He was aware of the tin box he was confined to, aware of the bullets ripping through, putting down men in front and behind him, and he thought of the term death trap, and that was when it came home.

  I’ve got to get out of this death trap.

  Two of the men in front of him made it out. Two out of how many? A dozen, maybe? LaRouche wasn’t sure whether that terrified him, or brought him some vindictive sense of joy, or maybe it angered him. Maybe it did all three.

  Just go.

  He made it to the end of the box truck and slid, down onto his side and off the tailgate in a tumble. Claire landed next to him. She let out a yelp and she had her eyes closed, though he couldn’t tell if it was with pain or fear. In front of him lay a dead man, just outside arm’s reach. All around him was shouting and cursing and gunfire and the smell of spent propellant.

  Gunsmoke.

  A scent that brought him back like smelling salts.

  Yes. Controlled bursts. The rapid tattooing chatter of an M249 SAW. The fury of the fight. The sound of haphazard suppressive fire, punctuated with the well-chosen shots of those that had found cover and concealment. He knew all these sounds very well, but a cohesive thought still eluded him.

  The dead man in front of him held a rifle. It was some black, synthetic thing with a magazine. LaRouche didn’t have the foggiest idea of the make or model. It didn’t matter. It was a weapon. He only hoped it had some rounds left in the magazine.

  He crawled for it on his elbows, skinning them on the gravel and rocks.

  The sound of the gunfire seemed to abate for a brief moment, only to energize itself again, but this time farther away. Still close enough that LaRouche could hear the bullets whizzing over his head, though. Close enough that they were kicking up dirt into his face and making him swear.

  He snagged the rifle lying next to the dead man and retreated to the box truck. Claire had brought herself up and was sitting with her legs curled up to her chest, taking cover behind the rear tire of the truck. Good. That was the perfect place.

  LaRouche slipped into the cover with her, squatting in front of her while he fiddled with the weapon in his hand, trying to find the magazine release.

  “What’s going on?” she shouted at him. The sound of a person who couldn’t hear her own voice. “Is someone trying to kill us?”

  He looked at her earnestly and wondered what was going through her head in that moment. Did she hope against hope that it was someone coming to save her? Was she cursing him for taking up a weapon? Or did she think that this was just something worse, because things were always getting worse for her? Maybe this was just a rival gang of thugs, trying to lay claim to supplies and they would just murder everyone wholesale, including the women.

  He didn’t answer her, though he knew. He didn’t answer because he didn’t know how she would take it. He didn’t know how she would react. So he just put a hand on her shoulder, their earlier conversation rolling through his brain pan like a ricocheting bullet.

  “Stay here,” LaRouche said, his voice low and serious. “Don’t fucking move from this spot. You hear me?”

  She nodded, wincing. “Yes.”

  He left her there and he hoped she would be there when he returned. At the very least he hoped that she would be alive. He worked his way around the front of the box truck, crossing the distance between the two sets of tires quickly so that low-ranging rounds wouldn’t take his knees out from under him. He paused at the front tires and then swung around, using the engine block for cover.

  He finally managed to get the magazine out. He didn’t see brass, but steel. Steel cartridges. Cheaper, and less reliable. But beggars could not be choosers. He slammed
the magazine back into the rifle and fought to see if the safety was engaged. He couldn’t seem to find a safety. He thought about just cranking off a round to see if it was ready to rock and roll, but then thought better of it. He hoped the previous owner had flicked it off before he’d been taken out.

  He registered someone’s voice, shouting at him. “LaRouche! LaRouche!”

  He looked up from the weapon and scanned the dark, firelit camp. In the darkness of the countryside that surrounded them, he saw the sparkling of muzzle flashes but he couldn’t tell if they were aimed in his direction. They made him cringe back into cover, but he didn’t hear the buzz-snap sound of rounds passing close to him.

  A voice cried out again, but it was not the same voice, and this voice was simply screaming in pain. It was calling for help, and apparently not getting it. Then it just trailed off and was quiet again.

  “LaRouche!”

  He leaned back out from the cover of the engine block and looked again at the scene before him. One of the tents was on fire, nearly burnt down to nothing but blackened tent poles. There were two cars that didn’t have a solid window between them. It was between these two bullet-riddled vehicles that LaRouche saw the dark form crouching.

  It was Clyde.

  “What?” LaRouche barked.

  Clyde waved to him. “Get the fuck over here!”

  Why do I have to move out of cover? LaRouche thought. But then he was running. The distance between the front of the box truck and the two vehicles where Clyde was taking cover was no more than ten yards, but still it seemed that every shot doubled in volume and LaRouche got the disconcerting sensation that they were all directed at him.

  He took the ground on his knees, ripping his pants and the skin beneath them, though he barely registered it. As he slid into cover beside Clyde, a round pecked at the dirt where he had just been and another gouged a trench out of the hood of the car just inches above their heads.

  “Fuck!” Clyde was breathing heavily, sweating heavily, and looked sick. He stank of bourbon in a way that called to mind an old bald-headed man with mucous and blood and whiskey shooting out of his nostrils, sliming LaRouche’s hands. And without the shield of anger, the memory made him want to gag. He wanted to wipe his hands on his clothing to remove the sensation of the snot and blood and liquor. Instead, he pulled himself closer to Clyde, because the stink of him was better than a hole in his head and the engine block was not quite enough cover for two men.

  LaRouche didn’t mean to shout in Clyde’s ear but he did. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Clyde didn’t react to the volume—maybe he was half deaf from the shooting anyways—but he gave LaRouche a queer look, as though he expected LaRouche to already know. “We’re being attacked. Come with me.”

  Clyde started to rise, but LaRouche caught him by the shoulder and put him back down. “Attacked by who?”

  Why are you asking things you already know?

  Clyde must have had the same thought, because he just threw LaRouche’s hand off his shoulder and started moving to the back of the two vehicles, out of the safety of the engine block. “I think you fucking know who, LaRouche. Another one of their fucking scouting parties poked our western sentry. He was able to sound the alarm. But I don’t think he made it.”

  At the trunk, Clyde poked his head up and LaRouche fully expected the top of it to pop like an overpressurized bottle. He scanned around for a moment, then ducked back down. “Okay. You ready?”

  “Where are we going?” LaRouche demanded.

  Clyde bared his teeth. “Don’t fucking ask—”

  LaRouche grabbed the other man sharply by the arm of his jacket.

  Clyde’s eyes snapped to his and LaRouche saw the truth of them in the flickering glow of firelight. They were empty glass, just like LaRouche’s. Windows into an abandoned house. Clyde’s mouth was open, spewing bourbon fumes into LaRouche’s face. His tongue played at his bottom teeth, slipping across them like he was tasting blood.

  LaRouche released him. He sat back on his haunches. “Tell me where we’re going.”

  Clyde gave LaRouche a withering glare. Adjusted his glasses. Then he pointed to a van. “There’s a PKM in there. I’m getting on it. You’re going to help me get it up and then flank them while keeping their heads down.”

  “A PKM,” LaRouche said, his voice lacking any inflection of opinion. He wanted to tell Clyde to go fuck himself, but to be honest, he couldn’t find anything wrong with what the other man was saying. It was a basic tenet of modern warfare. Apply suppressive fire. Move when the heads are down. Apply fire from multiple angles.

  Clyde nodded emphatically. “You ready?”

  No. “Yes.”

  And then they were moving.

  Clyde was up first, sprinting. LaRouche came up off his knees and onto his feet, still crouched behind the vehicle. He peered and sighted over the top of the car. The hood of it was worse off than LaRouche had originally thought. It was studded and cratered with dozens of bullet strikes. Beyond the hood, the scene was one of chaos and fire. He was facing a far wood line that rose up into a hill so that the trees seemed to tower over them. There were a few campfires still burning, but most of the red glow of fire came from a vehicle that was just beginning to burn down, the husk of it like a skeleton picked clean. It threw dull light onto the lowest branches of the trees on the wood line, but above and beyond that it was darkness, except for the muzzle flashes that seemed to be racing for the top of the hill.

  The sound of the battle still seemed angry and close, but LaRouche knew something that Clyde did not. He glanced off to his right and saw Clyde crouched at the back end of the van, flinging the back doors open. The angle of the van was so that he was concealed from the direction of the attack. He reached into the back and pulled out the PKM, a long-barreled, belt-fed cousin of the AK-47. LaRouche briefly wondered where in the hell they had come across it.

  LaRouche turned back and saw that the muzzle flashes had reached the crest of the hill. A bullet pinged the ground but it was well away from him. As the muzzle flashes sank to the other side of the hill, the sound of then suddenly became muted.

  Clyde slid in beside him and heaved the machine gun up onto the trunk of the car, then racked the charging handle to prime the belt. He settled into the stock, his face glistening though it was cold out. His eyes feverish and intoxicated.

  “Stop,” LaRouche said, holding out a hand. “Save your ammo.”

  Clyde looked at him angrily. “What?”

  LaRouche put a hand on the side of the car and found the metal cold and frosted on his hands. He leaned on it. “They’re military, aren’t they? The people that attacked?”

  Clyde only nodded.

  LaRouche felt suddenly sick to his stomach. It was the same feeling he’d had after he’d fought with Father Jim. After he’d pulled his pistol and put it to the other man’s head. After he’d pulled the trigger and thrown himself down a path completely dark and unfamiliar to him. It was the sensation of realizing you are not who you thought you were.

  US troops? he thought. Am I fighting them? Am I fighting soldiers? Marines?

  But for some reason, his mouth was moving without the permission of his brain. While his heart told him Traitor! the rest of him just kept going down that path. It was a steep path, and it went only one way.

  “We need to get the fuck out of here.” LaRouche realized he had stood up and was looking around for someone in authority. Chalmers, he supposed. “Trust me, Clyde, we don’t want to stay here. Things are gonna get real ugly.”

  Clyde’s eyes were wide, though the PKM in his arms had now been laid to rest. “What the fuck are you talking about? We got ’em on the run!”

  LaRouche gave him a hard look. “You got the scouting party on the run, you dumb shit. That’s what they do. They probe and then they run. And do you know what the fuck they’re doing right now? Calling in the big guns. I don’t know who these people are or how much equipment they have, but I p
romise you that we don’t want to wait to find out.”

  Clyde looked between LaRouche and the firefight that was fading now, only a few muffled pops from the top of the ridge as the Followers’ sentries pursued over the hill and then, getting away from camp and backup, would likely stop and come back, waiting for further orders. He mumbled something under his breath and then stood up fully, the big machine gun hanging in his arms.

  LaRouche looked at him questioningly. He was beginning to feel the urgency of what he had said ticking through him. The thought of fighting against actual US troops made him nauseous, but he also had no desire to be killed by them. They needed to leave this area.

  Clyde shook his head. “It’s not my call to make. You gotta find Deacon Chalmers and talk to him about it.”

  They found Deacon Chalmers only a few minutes after their last exchange. He had only his massive revolver strapped to his hip in its leather holster and LaRouche could not see any other weapon. He was consumed with the task of gathering dead. LaRouche could see it in his eyes just as clear as the fire that consumed the car—Chalmers was enraged.

  He was not a large man, but he did the work of two, stooping down into a squat and worming his hands underneath the armpits of a dead man with no face. He hooked his arms there, his hands grasping at the dead man’s chest and hoisting him up off the ground. Chalmers seemed heedless to the bloody caul that flopped against his neck and face as he straightened and began to drag the body toward a gathering of others. There were only a few lying in a tight row. It seemed no one else had finished with the fighting and chaos just yet and Chalmers was the only one determined to begin gathering the dead.

  Clyde hurried forward to help, but LaRouche did not quicken his step. He stared at the short man with the gray beard and the cold and hot eyes that glared at nothing. He looked at the body that he dragged and the others that lay scattered around, crumpled over their wounds. Most seemed childlike in their deaths. The way they curled in on themselves. The fetal position instinctive.