by D. J. Molles
“The facts I gathered were interesting and a little incongruous. Special Forces soldier, Navy SEAL, or some other secret government operative—no one was very clear on that point. But what they were clear on was that you had”—he put air quotes here—“ gone rogue.” Staley waited for a reaction, but received nothing. So he continued. “You had access to large amounts of weapons, ammunition, and ordnance. Various war-fighting materials. You were in direct opposition to the government of the United States. You were fighting a guerrilla campaign against government entities inside North Carolina. And you needed to be killed or captured immediately, and it didn’t matter which.”
Lee’s mouth had gone dry, but his expression remained impassive. He worked some moisture onto his tongue and swallowed. He realized he was incredibly thirsty, but he kept himself focused on the task at hand and kept his eyes locked on Staley’s as though to look away would be instant death. “So can I ask you why the might of the United States Marine Corps hasn’t come crashing down on my head already? Why are we sitting here talking?”
“Because there were other commands given,” Staley said plainly. He leaned forward onto his elbows, his fingers interlacing. “Things that I didn’t agree with. I was… uncomfortable accepting as fact the positions that certain people were claiming for themselves.”
“Such as the presidency.”
Staley nodded. “And when you don’t want to get cow dung on you, you should probably stay away from things that smell like bullshit, isn’t that right?”
“I suppose so.”
“So now.” Staley’s eyes narrowed. “What’s bullshit and what’s fact? Gimme the Gospel According to Captain Harden.”
“I’ll give you the truth.”
“That would be rare.”
Lee looked to his left, made brief eye contact with Brinly. Then he twisted and could see the shape of the second and third Marines out of the corner of his vision. They were all in the same places. In the back of his mind he kept thinking about them and kept having to tell himself that it didn’t matter if he could get away from them. He wouldn’t be able to get away from the ones outside.
And what about Colonel Staley? Could you take him?
And First Sergeant Brinly?
Lee didn’t hold a special place in his heart for high-ranking brass. This one seemed a little more steely than most, but you weren’t awarded rank according to your skills on the battlefield. It was time and politics, mostly, and sometimes ribbons. But mostly time and politics. Colonel Staley might command Marines, but chances were his tours were done in safe zones well out of the range of gunfire and mortars, and he’d probably spent the last few months in the relative safety of the Camp Lejeune Military Preserve, surrounded by protective details similar to the ones around them now.
First Sergeant Brinly seemed like he would be the one to fight. Lee could see it in the way he watched Lee. He had predator’s eyes. Very confident. Very still. Always waiting. And when he struck, if he struck at all, it would be fast, and ugly, and devastating.
Lee was by no means overconfident in himself. But he knew his capabilities. Brinly was a hard man, but not the hardest. Not even the hardest that Lee had killed. When Lee looked at him he saw his huge chest and thought top-heavy. A man that had much faith in brute strength. Lee probably couldn’t outmuscle him. But if he could break his balance, he could put him on the ground, and once he had him on the ground, he could take a half second to shoot the other two Marines and Staley, strip Brinly’s rifle, and either shoot him or stomp his throat in before making a run for it.
If the need arose.
So far, things teetered but held.
So far… but Lee had yet to tell the truth.
“I’m not SF and I’m not SEALs,” Lee said. “Not a covert agent or anything like that. Just a soldier. Me and forty-eight others were given this… doomsday mission, I guess you could call it. Wasn’t supposed to ever be used. Just a contingency.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Here we are.” Lee looked over Staley’s shoulder at the blackened remnants of the oak tree. “The mission had specific parameters. I won’t lie to you, I went outside of those parameters. Not grossly, but…” He trailed off.
“You broke the rules.”
Lee looked at him, his voice cold. “I left a bunker. I left a steel box in the ground to see what the fuck was going on outside. Communication with any sort of command was nonexistent and had been for nearly a month. I needed to know what was happening. So I left the fucking bunker. Yes, I broke the rules.”
Staley considered this. “Seems like a minor infraction.”
“I was declared a nonviable asset,” Lee said flatly. “Or ‘gone rogue,’ to use your words. I was blissfully unaware of this until a few weeks ago, when people started trying to kill me. Come to find out I rubbed some people a little wrong. Mostly Briggs. The whole time I thought I was playing for the home team. Come to find out I’m kicking at the wrong goal.”
“What was the goal they wanted you to be kicking at?”
“Abandon everyone and everything. Hightail it to the interior states. Leave the coastal states to be overrun.”
Staley took a deep breath through his nose and seemed to be mulling something over in his mind.
Lee leaned forward. “And if you’ve had any contact with Briggs, I’d bet he gave you similar orders.”
Staley didn’t directly answer, though he didn’t deny it, either. “You mention the word overrun.”
“Yes.”
“Can you explain?”
“A while back we made contact with a microbiologist from the CDC. Name of Jacob Crane. He was coming out of a research facility in Virginia where some tests were done. Some computer models run. Et cetera.” Lee felt heavy speaking of Jacob, like the words themselves were formed of lead. “He was also speaking from experience. He said there were hordes of infected people coming out of the major northeastern cities, some of them numbering in the millions. He said that they were following the path of least resistance, moving south and consuming everything they came across.”
“Like locusts,” Staley said.
“The comparison was made.”
Staley absorbed the information with little reaction. Lee waited for something, some sign of where the colonel’s head was at, but the man kept his thoughts hidden from Lee, his expression enigmatic. “I understand that this is the reason you are demolishing the bridges along the Roanoke River. At first I was… hesitant to believe it. Partly because it makes things difficult for me.” His voice took a different tone, and here for the first time Lee caught a hint of anger. “I’m already fighting a war on two fronts. Camp Lejeune isn’t just full of Marines. It is full of their families, as well as refugees from Jacksonville. We’ve secured the perimeter of the compound as best we can but it’s a constant push on our fencing from the infected. We’ve been lucky lately but for a time they were getting through almost daily.” His voice darkened yet again. “And then we have another problem that we’ve been pushing away from us. Some whacko, fringe religious group calling themselves the Followers of the Rapture.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard of them.”
Staley didn’t look at Lee. Rather, his eyes remained focused on something that was on the tabletop. “Apparently they originated out of the New Bern area. When this whole thing went down they came out of New Bern, trying to push south, and ran right into us. Which was bad for them.”
“I can imagine.”
Staley was silent for a long moment. He seemed to wake up with a breath and then pressed on: “We’ve been pushing them westward, away from us. They’re slippery fuckers, always on the move. And between manpower issues trying to keep the base secure and everyone inside fed, we haven’t been able to pursue them as hard as we would have liked.”
Lee watched Staley carefully. “Why pursue them at all?”
Staley made eye contact with Lee and held it. There was something else there, but it was staying unsaid. Lee wanted to
pry the truth out of him, but thought it was best to let this one die. Staley didn’t seem like a man that liked prying.
“Anyway,” Staley said a little brusquely. “All of that is to say that when I heard about your plan to blow the bridges, I was a little dubious. I didn’t want to be involved in another manpower drain, if you’ll pardon my word choice. However, I’ve received some reports over the course of the last few days from some of the men I attached to your groups and it seems that the threat has been verified.”
Lee felt some heat rising underneath his collar. “If you had doubts, it would have been nice to hear about them earlier.”
“You’re hearing about them now.”
“And what is so convincing about these reports?”
“Lance Corporal Gilmore is attached to your man Wilson. We stay in contact via sat-phone and his reports are given on a nightly basis. He’s impressed upon me the seriousness of the threat and says they are struggling to stay ahead of the hordes. It’s come to my attention that he has, on several occasions, seen these hordes with his own eyes.”
“They are,” Lee confirmed. He’d received his own reports from Wilson. They were running ragged. Sleeping four hours at night and then running to the next bridge. It seemed no matter how fast they moved, the infected were right there with them. Maybe it wasn’t the same horde. Or maybe it was. Maybe it was so vast that they couldn’t outrun it. “We could use some help getting ahead of them.”
“So he says.” Staley moved on. “My other man is Sergeant Kensey. He’s with an entire squad that went to your man Harper in Eden.”
“I’m aware.”
“Sergeant Kensey gave his most recent report early this morning. Around five o’clock. Did you receive a similar report from your man?”
Lee stiffened. He didn’t like Staley’s tone. It was the sound of a man broaching the subject of bad news. “No, we were already on the road at five.”
Staley dipped his head. “I understand that you were holding Eden as a sort of pinch point. Bottleneck the hordes into a smaller geographical area. Good plan. Unfortunately, Sergeant Kensey reported to me this morning that Eden has been overrun and that they had to pack out.”
Lee’s right hand didn’t know what to do with itself. It found the strap of his rifle and clutched it. He had to force himself to remain seated and think calmly. “What about my people? Harper’s group?”
“They pulled out with Sergeant Kensey’s squad. Like I said… the city had been overrun.”
Lee realized his face had formed into a harsh grimace. He tried to relax. It wasn’t working. He suddenly despised Staley for knowing what he did not. He didn’t want to hear about his people’s status through the mouth of someone he barely knew and wasn’t even sure was a friend. It was only a blow to his pride, but still it chafed him.
Lee’s hand worked at the rifle strap. “I can’t help but feel that we might have kept a foothold in Eden if we’d received the assistance we thought we were going to get in the first place.”
Staley smiled without humor. “Yes, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
Lee leaned forward abruptly and put his fist on the table. He hadn’t meant for it to be aggressive, but it hit the table with a loud thump and he heard the Marines shift as though getting ready to interfere if things got violent. “So knowing what you know, are you still sitting on your hands or can we expect a little fucking help?”
Staley didn’t even blink. “Captain Harden—”
“No.” Lee jammed his index finger down into the wooden tabletop. “I’m done with word games and bullshit. There’s no time for it and I’m not inclined to play politics.” He gave a deliberate look at Brinly. “You got your men here and mine are too far away to do any goddamn good for me. If you are gonna do something with me, then do it, for chrissake. If you’re gonna help, then help. I can give you a fucking laundry list of things we need. But if you’re going to sit there on the other side of that table and contemplate whether or not it’s worth it to come out from behind your fucking barbed wire fences and actually do something before we’re all slaughtered, then I think we’re done talking.”
For the first time, Lee felt like his words were punching through Staley’s veneer.
Lee pointed at him. “You know what’s out there now. You can’t plead ignorance. The situation is exactly what I told you it was. The needs remain the same. There is nothing left to discuss. You’re either here to help me, or you’re here to hurt me.”
“I can promise you that we’re not here to hurt you or any of your people,” Staley said, his voice rising.
“Wasting my time hurts me,” Lee spat. “Give me the help or let me go.”
“I’m generally not fond of ultimatums,” Staley said. “However, I see our situations entangled. So far as I can tell, neither of us is willing to submit to the command and control of President—or Acting President—Briggs. Additionally, it appears that what you have told us about the size of the infected hordes from the north is true, or at least true enough to pose a serious threat. Your plan for the bridges over the Roanoke River concerns me, but in all of the time I’ve considered this, I can’t really come up with a better option. If they truly are numbering in the millions, then we simply don’t have the resources or the manpower to fight them off in a widespread offensive. So the bottleneck is necessary. Which means that our interests are the same. And allies are sparse enough these days.”
“I’ve heard this before, Colonel.”
“What happened to your bunkers?”
The question was so sudden and out of the blue that it rocked Lee back. He’d told Staley that he’d been in a bunker, but never mentioned anything about having more than one. And yet Staley was clearly asking in the plural. Was he just making an intuitive leap because of Lee’s mention of supplies and a “doomsday mission”?
“Who told you about bunkers?” Lee asked quietly.
Staley shook his head. “Could’ve been Briggs, could’ve been someone else. Hell, maybe I knew about it all along. The fact of the matter is this: I’m the bank, and you’re the guy looking for a loan. The currency is beans and bullets and boots on the ground, but the situation remains the same. Before the bank makes a loan, it always wants to know what happened to your money.”
Lee stewed on that for a moment, and Staley let him think it over in silence.
“Briggs has control of them,” Lee said, finally. “He sent one of his men after me. They worked their way into my camp, got a little close to me, and then when we were out beyond the wire by ourselves, he shot me in the head and stole… something from me.”
Staley’s eyes shot up to Lee’s scarred head. “I was wondering what happened there. What was the thing he took?”
“The only way to find and access the bunkers.”
“I see.”
“Colonel Staley,” Lee said with a heavy breath. “My mission here was very simple: find survivors, band them together, and start to rebuild something. Make sure that what popped up was built on American principles. But Briggs thinks that’s a waste of resources. He thinks we’re already doomed and he’s written us off.” Lee made sure that he had eye contact with Staley. “But the reason he took that thing is because he wants those bunkers for himself. Eventually the problems at his doorstep won’t be that big anymore and when that happens he will come knocking and anyone that opposed him now or in the future is going to have to make a decision. I’ve already made my decision, and I’m fully prepared to deal with the consequences when they come—and they will come. But what about you, Colonel? Where will you stand when Briggs comes knocking?”
Staley stood. “Captain, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now we have a common enemy, and a common goal.” He extended his hand across the table. “Let’s work on that.”
Lee wanted to think about it. The words that Staley had said worried him. He did not want a temporary friend that he would always have to look over his shoulder for, wondering when the knife in the back
would come. He wanted to be able to trust Staley, but after those words had been spoken, it seemed that ship had sailed.
But then, he didn’t want the hand to retract.
Like it or not, he needed Staley’s help.
He reached out and grabbed it. “Deal.”
TWENTY
EDGES
JULIA THOUGHT THAT THE pain could not be worse.
But as the adrenaline of the moment faded, she realized that it can always get worse. And it did. She had broken her arm once when she’d been a little girl. In the old barn that sat back from their house where Dad used to keep the lawn mower and store the majority of his tools, she and Marie had played Don’t Touch the Ground, hopping from workbenches to the dusty seat of the old Cub Cadet rider, then to five-gallon buckets filled with joint compound that their father would probably never use. And then Julia had decided to go higher up and started climbing up an old, metal shelving unit full of toolboxes and worn-out power tools. Marie was perched on one of Dad’s sawhorses and she’d been giggling at first, but then she got quiet. Julia, caught up in the moment, kept climbing.
“Jules, don’t go up that high,” Marie had said in her big-sister voice, which would often come on suddenly when she decided they might be doing something they would get in trouble for. “Dad’s gonna kill you if you knock that over.”
But Julia was still laughing, working her way up the shelving unit and dangling off it dramatically, trying to get a rise out of Marie.
“Serious, Jul-ee-uh!”
“It’s fine,” Julia snickered, reaching for the top shelf. “It’s sturdy.”
Then she had decided to shake the shelving unit to demonstrate that it was sturdy and put her worrywart sister at ease. But when she shook it, all of the sudden it didn’t seem so sturdy. And a big black case that held one of Dad’s circular saws went tumbling off the back of the shelf and all of the sudden there wasn’t enough weight to counterbalance even her small frame. And the shelving unit was tipping over.
