by D. J. Molles
Around midday, the sound of engines reached LaRouche and his fatigue was snuffed out in a wave of adrenaline. He snatched his rifle up and ran for the easternmost barricade of vehicles with two other men. Chalmers was atop the roof and LaRouche saw him out of the corner of his eye as the man raised his hands far above his head, a look of relief on his face.
That gave LaRouche pause and he stopped running, though he still had his rifle shouldered, his body still gearing itself into battle. The other two men that had made for the barricade continued on, but LaRouche stayed there in the middle of the street, looking up at the man who had become his… what?
Master.
No…
Chalmers looked down at him and shouted out. “Open that barricade, LaRouche.”
The barricade was opened and vehicles began to pour in, filling up the town center with exhaust and noise. Chalmers remained atop his roof, but when he caught LaRouche’s eye again, he summoned him with a wave of his hand. LaRouche looked up at him and felt the urge to disobey, but then he started moving. He made his way around the vehicles and the men that were pouring out of them, shouting and yelling when they recognized others that they knew. Slapping hands. Grinning like apes.
LaRouche made it inside the building and found his way up to the top of the roof where Chalmers was standing, overlooking the scene below. From a bird’s-eye view, LaRouche could make out the segregation of squads and units, though none were dressed alike. They simply bunched together in groups of ten or fifteen, and one of them would appear to have control. They were packing the vehicles in tight to make room for more. The interior of the town center was big, but it seemed that they would need every bit of the room if the Followers continued to trickle in.
“What is this?” LaRouche asked.
Behind them, the door to the roof opened and closed again. LaRouche turned and saw that Clyde had joined them. LaRouche greeted the other man with a nod and received the same greeting back, though Clyde eyed him suspiciously. LaRouche couldn’t help but wonder what that was about.
“Ah, Clyde.” Chalmers smiled wearily. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we all made it out.”
Clyde shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. “From everything I’m hearing down below, it sounds like LaRouche called it. The last few stragglers that left the camp said they heard helicopters incoming and explosions shortly after they left.”
“How many have we lost?” Chalmers asked, his tone guarded.
Clyde shook his head. “Too early to tell. Once we get everybody here and all the squad commanders do head counts, we’ll have a better idea. I know most of our squad commanders are reporting some men missing right now, but we don’t know if they’re going to show up soon or not.”
“Will they know where to find us?” LaRouche looked down again at the people below. “And where did all these people come from? These aren’t all from our camp.”
“No.” Clyde took up answering the question for Chalmers. “Some of the men will know to come here, and others will not. This location is not known to everyone. It’s our… backup plan.”
LaRouche looked between the two men with the question in his eyes.
Chalmers had his hands on his hips, his face compressed into that unsteady anger of his. Something that might simmer or might explode at a moment’s notice. “Our means of communication are old, LaRouche. We don’t have radios like the Marines. Most communication comes and goes by couriers on motorcycle, or it comes with supply convoys. Or we have a prearranged plan.” He spread his hands out to encompass the town center. “This is one of those prearranged plans.”
Chalmers spoke sourly. “For the past month we’ve had good containment on Camp Lejeune, with assault teams at the ready to press the Marines anytime they tried to leave their gates. Our very own Pastor Wiscoe was overseeing this himself. This was to keep them contained. We knew that we couldn’t necessarily overpower them, but we hoped that we could keep them from pressing us west.”
“But they have been pressing you west,” LaRouche said, not meaning to make it sound like an accusation, but that’s how it came out anyway.
Chalmers looked at him sharply. “Yes. After a fashion. But we’ve kept the damage contained by making their forays costly to them. And we’ve been gaining strength while they’ve been hiding, trying to figure out whether to let their birds fly or not. We didn’t really know the strength of their airpower—still don’t. They’ve been holding it back, I anticipate because they have limited fuel to put them into the air.”
Chalmers looked out at the barricades, his face fallen to hard lines and bitterness. “I knew this day was going to come. I knew it from the start. Pastor Wiscoe…” Chalmers looked pained. “He’s a good man, but he’s lost the faith. He’s been losing his faith for months now. Each time we’re struck down by the remnant military, he loses a bit more faith.”
Chalmers folded his arms across his chest and faced LaRouche. “I just received word the other day that Wiscoe is giving up his containment of Camp Lejeune. He believes we should head west. For the mountains. Where the presence of a military force is not as prevalent, and where we can regroup and restrengthen ourselves. But these are the thoughts of a man whose only faith lies in practicalities. I’m a practical man as well, but I also have faith. I believe these challenges only build our faith. And I believe that the time has come to prove it. The time has come for a small force to take a large one, like Gideon took the Canaanites. So all the men under my command, most of the eastern front, we’re going to gather our forces. And we’re going to strike back, rather than run.”
Some little part of his national pride was pricked down deep inside him, but he kept his face impassive. He shouldn’t even care anyway. The vestiges of the US Army had abandoned him in Smithfield with a group of sick and injured. Their last-ditch effort in the form of a man called Lee Harden and a plan called Project Hometown had not gone well, and LaRouche was not even sure if Lee was still alive. What government there was left seemed determined to leave everyone east of the Appalachian Mountains to be wiped out by the massive hordes coming out of the northeastern cities. On all counts, the US government had failed him.
But Chalmers didn’t know these things.
LaRouche felt the acid rising in his stomach. The sting of it in his throat.
He turned suddenly to Chalmers. “We need to talk. Inside.”
THIRTY-ONE
WHOLE TRUTHS
THE INTERIOR OF THE building that Chalmers had chosen as their temporary headquarters was empty. It was one of those spaces that had never been leased or rented and still sat there with anonymous white paint on the walls and bare, tile floors. There was nothing to it but a wide-open space where you could have put anything—cubicles, tables for a restaurant, a small warehouse—and then a few doors in the back that led to restrooms and a small office.
LaRouche imagined that it had once smelled of new drywall and plaster and industrial paint. That fresh smell of progress that went along with newly minted houses and businesses. But now it smelled dingy, heavy with the stink of men.
There were only six men, including LaRouche and Clyde. Chalmers was there with three of his men, who seemed more like bodyguards than high-ranking members, because they had not said a word the entire time and they stood to either side of the room and glared at LaRouche. LaRouche found himself staring back at them, wondering what their expressions would be if he got a knife in their throat…
Chalmers, however, stared at nothingness.
A protracted, internal conversation that was carried out in silence.
Clyde stood beside and slightly behind LaRouche. There, but not there.
LaRouche waited for his verdict. He did not feel nervous, though he probably should have. Several days had passed since they’d taken him, and he was sure that Chalmers had expected him to come clean about something like this long before now. Chalmers had put trust in him. If he did not like the scent of what LaRouche was telling him, it would b
e Chalmers that put a bullet into LaRouche’s head.
Or maybe he would have Clyde do it.
LaRouche felt an odd peace about the whole thing. Perhaps peace was too gentle a word. But whatever you called it, LaRouche was not concerned. His life had been forfeit when he’d knelt before Chalmers, and Chalmers had given it back to him. Some might call LaRouche a traitor to Camp Ryder, a murderer, or an evil man. But LaRouche was a man of violence. He was capable of violence, and he showed a skill for it. Over the course of the last week he’d been settling into that realization like you put on an old pair of boots.
In the grand scheme of things, how else was he useful but as an instrument to inflict violence? The cause didn’t seem to matter. One was just as bad as the next. If it wasn’t the United States government trying to cling to power through people like Lee Harden, then it was people like the Followers, determined to raise a new thing from the ashes.
In the end, it was all dirty. No matter what the crime, no matter the brutality, it was the winning team that got to tell the story, and such inconvenient facts like massacres and rapes were typically left out. But the men that brought a cause from inception to fruition remained the same across the globe, from cause to cause, and throughout history. They were all men of violence. And in the end they would all be damned for the things that they had done, whether the winner hung medals on their chest, or the world scoffed at them and held them on trial for war crimes. It was all the same in the end.
Live by the sword and die by the sword.
That’s what Father Jim would have told me.
LaRouche was just another one of these violent men. And his particular skills were of no more use to Camp Ryder. So they went to the next person in line that would take him. And that was the Followers. They had taken him in. They had given him a place to sleep. A safe place, and now that he was in their good graces, they had fed him, and given him responsibilities.
Like the responsibility to make sure that people die.
But that is what I do. That is what I’m good at. I have no other skill.
Chalmers stood up, his intentions unknown to LaRouche. He looked at LaRouche with a bit of suspicion, perhaps some hesitation. A man choosing his words carefully. He took a single step and was standing in front of LaRouche, and he reached out a hand and placed it on LaRouche’s shoulder. His touch was iron. He had a lean musculature that was tacked on his frame, stiff and tense. And yet he still managed to look and talk like a relaxed man.
“LaRouche,” he said, in a voice like a grandfather speaking to his grandson. “Why are you here?”
LaRouche looked at Clyde, then back to Chalmers. But Clyde would not make eye contact, and Chalmers was waiting for LaRouche’s answer, and his other hand was hanging close to the big nickel-plated revolver that hung on his side. LaRouche simply had to say one wrong thing and Chalmers would hollow out his head.
“Honestly?” LaRouche asked.
Chalmers smiled a ghostly smile. “God is always our witness. And a righteous man is honest, even to his own undoing.”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
“Nor do the rest of us.” Chalmers nodded, his face becoming serious again. “I believe you, LaRouche. And I believe that you mean the best for us, because you understand the situation that we are in, like many others do not.” Chalmers tilted his head down, looking at LaRouche from under graying eyebrows. “You understand that we are facing long odds. You understand the difficulty of the task that has been set before us. But do you know why?”
LaRouche did not respond. He wasn’t sure whether it was a rhetorical question or not.
Chalmers pointed a finger at him. “Because if everything came easy to us, there would be no faith. There would be no need for God. That’s what happened to this country in the first place, LaRouche. God blessed us so much that our lives were so easy and we forgot that he was there. That’s what people do. They never remember God until their lives are difficult again. And that is why God has visited this plague upon us, and that is why he has called upon his faithful followers to rebuild this great nation, and not in the secular, twisted mind-set of modern morals and ethics, but to rebuild it as one nation under God, the way it was meant to be from the start.
“You know Gideon was sent against the hordes of Canaan with a great army, but by the time it came down to fighting, God had made Gideon give away most of his force. First, he made Gideon tell his men that if they didn’t have the stomach to fight, they could go home, and more than half the army left. Then God made Gideon’s army drink from a brook and all the men that lapped the water up like dogs were sent home, and only the ones that stood and brought the water to their lips with their hands were allowed to remain. And from Gideon’s army of thousands and thousands, there remained only three hundred, and these lonely three hundred were the men that took Canaan. And God made it this way so that Gideon would have faith. So that he would have to believe in God.”
Chalmers wagged a finger in the air, smiling. “Do you think that’s what God has done here? Do you think that there are many comparisons between this time and that?”
LaRouche bowed his head. “I think the odds are stacked.”
Chalmers shook his head. “You are here because this is the only place for you, just like so many others. But God has brought you here for a reason, LaRouche. Just like he brought Clyde. Just like he brought me. And I think that your reason for being here has yet to be revealed. I think you’re holding back just a little bit more.” Chalmers spread his arms. “Tell us, LaRouche. We are the Lord’s Army, and we are your only friends left in the world. What is it that you aren’t telling us?”
LaRouche opened his mouth, but hesitated. What was he feeling at that moment? He wasn’t sure himself. He should have felt shame. He should have felt like a traitor. But he didn’t. He was just a slave. And these were his masters. His new masters. That was what he did. He obeyed.
Chalmers spoke the first words for him: “Camp Ryder, yes? The Camp Ryder Hub, as they call it?”
LaRouche looked at his boots, but he couldn’t find the shame there, either. He picked up his gaze and gave it directly to Chalmers. “Yes. Camp Ryder. I think… I think that in order for us to survive this, we need to hit some richer targets. Guns and ammunition. Some medical supplies. Food and water as well. And the Camp Ryder Hub is where these things are. If not Camp Ryder itself, then some outlying areas that they’ve given arms and ordnance to, as well as food and medicine. They’re still hurting, but they’re better off than most of the rest of the state, and faith or no faith, I think it would behoove us to get our hands on a lot more hardware before we return to the Marines.”
Chalmers regarded LaRouche with a very serious expression. It was obvious that he did not like the sound of LaRouche clearly not seeing him as Gideon conquering the Canaanites; however, the thought of a set of rich targets could not be completely dismissed offhand. Even Chalmers knew that.
If he had any serious reservations about what LaRouche had stated, he kept them to himself. It could have been that he’d considered this very thing himself. Whatever his stance on it was, he remained silent and he walked back to his seat. Then he sat, leaned back, and crossed one leg over the other.
When he was seated, Chalmers motioned at LaRouche with a sweep of his hand.
“Tell me about the targets,” he said.
THIRTY-TWO
THE WATCH
BRETT STOOD ON TOP of the Camp Ryder building, cold and angry. Cold because the day was wet and soggy, and as night crept in and stole darkness over the camp, it brought a harsh chill with it and Brett could have sworn it was dipping into the teens, or at least was going to before the night was over.
Angry in part because of the cold and how he was stuck up on the roof, where the wind howled and no warmth was to be found. But also angry over what had happened earlier. He had no right to be angry, he figured. He was not a card-carrying member of the Camp Ryder club. Hell, he had barely been around them for more
than a week. But he knew some bullshit when he saw it, and the outsiders taking to their weapons like that over some slight committed out beyond the wire… that was unconscionable in his book.
The world had become a shitty place. Sure, everybody knew that. Brett knew that, right along with them. Not that he had a dismal outlook on things, though. On the contrary—he was a very positive guy. But there comes a point when you have to realize that things are not going to go the way that you think they should. And you have to be able to work around that. He was very disappointed in the man they called Mac, and whoever the fuck his dumbass compatriot was that pulled the knife. They should know that things out beyond the wire are unstable and volatile. If one of their people tried to take anything—hell, even if he just looked like he was trying to take something—then Brett thought it was perfectly justified that he be gunned down where he stood. There was no room for error out there. No room for civility. They were lucky enough that the superior force from Camp Ryder had let them go without ripping them to shreds in the roadway. They certainly shouldn’t be complaining about one shitbag friend that they’d lost.
Of course, there were other concerns that abounded.
Camp Ryder had been a sort of legend in the minds of people out east. Folks traveling through that had come into contact with Camp Ryder, or had passed through the Hub in one capacity or another, brought with them stories of how wonderful life was in the Hub. Of course, Brett was not a rube and he had not bought all of this hook, line, and sinker. He had chalked some of it up to hyperbole—and rightly so. Camp Ryder was not a haven of stability in the region, they didn’t have electricity, they weren’t in contact with a new federal government, nor were they receiving foreign aid, or any of the other bullshit stories that Brett had heard.
Instead, he had found Camp Ryder much as he had expected to find it. Troubled and unstable, but doing better than most.
