Refugees

by D. J. Molles

  The houses and the chain-link fencing stopped as they crossed over a bridge with a single set of railroad tracks underneath. On the rails, a freight train sat stalled, its lengthy bulk trundling motionless off into the distance in either direction, its cargo of coal and cedar chips and whatever else it carried stuck in limbo forever.

  After the bridge, the trees to either side of the road disappeared and the land opened up into a sprawl of white hangars and a squat brick building right in the center of it all. The municipal airport had no security measures to speak of. No gates to block their progress either into the airport or onto the tarmac. The road led to a parking lot in front of the brick building, and there was a cluster of military vehicles there, spread out onto the tarmac. Immediately, Lee could see a couple of “gun truck” Humvees, as well as a few more LMTVs and a HEMTT with a wrecker attachment.

  Jim pulled the truck up over the curb, the other two vehicles following in a slow parade as they circled the compound at a steady twenty miles per hour. As they did, Lee counted the vehicles, including several that he had not seen, parked hurriedly beside and behind some hangar buildings as though the operators had abandoned them in a rush and caught the last flight out of town.

  There were no aircraft left on the field save for a few civilian propeller planes, now just abandoned chunks of fiberglass and metal. All the helicopters were gone, and if anything like a C-130 had been here, Lee saw no evidence of it now.

  The vehicles that remained were three Humvees, two of them with guns, and the other just an old two-seater cargo truck; two more LMTVs identical to the two they had; and two more HEMTTs, one with a wrecker attachment and the other with a tanker on the back.

  After taking a long, cautious loop around the perimeter of the airport, they saw nothing to make them believe there were any infected in the area. Lee directed LaRouche onto the tarmac, and they parked there, about fifty yards from the cluster of abandoned military vehicles.

  Lee pushed open his door. “Sit tight for a second.”

  He jumped down, scanning around him carefully as he jogged back to the other Humvee. Lucky was driving, and Wilson sat in the passenger seat, his jaw clenched and sweating profusely. Tough kid to lose two fingers and have them seared shut with no pain medication.

  “How you holdin’ up?” Lee asked.

  Wilson just grunted and nodded.

  Lee patted him on the shoulder, then directed his attention to Lucky. “Hand me that radio.”

  Lucky reached forward for Wilson and plucked the handset from the console and leaned across Wilson’s body to give it to the captain. Lee nodded in thanks and keyed the radio. He called for Harper twice before garnering a response.

  “Yeah, go ahead, Captain. This is Harper.”

  Lee turned and faced away from the Humvee as he talked, scanning the area behind him. He could still hear Deuce complaining from the back of the LMTV, but he had quieted some. “Harper, you still in Lillington, or have you headed out?”

  “We’re still here, but we were about to hit the road.” A pause. “Jacob has his… thing.”

  “Copy. Switch over to private channel,” Lee said quickly.

  After a moment and a few adjustments, Harper was the first to transmit. “Are you sure about this?”

  Lee rubbed his eyebrows. “No. How’s it look? Is it secured?”

  “Yeah, it’s secure.” There was a level of resignation in his voice. “It makes a lot of noise, but it doesn’t seem to want to attack us. It just kind of lashes out if you get too close.”

  Natural instinct, Lee thought. Lot of posturing, but a pregnant female won’t go for a fight unless she absolutely has to. Too much risk to the fetus.

  Aloud, he said, “What about the others?”

  “There were no others.” Harper’s voice was flat. “This was the only one left. The others were dead and this one was eating them to stay alive.”

  Lee made a face. “Has anyone from Lillington seen you guys?”

  “No, we’re a couple blocks from the outpost, and we’re outta sight.”

  “Good. How many do you have with you?”

  “I’ve got five, besides myself.”

  “Count Jacob out,” Lee said. “He needs to stay with his… subject. Send one other person with him to help if the thing gets out of hand, then let him take your pickup straight to Smithfield, and don’t let anyone see them. You and the other three beg, borrow, or steal a vehicle from Lillington—I’m sure Old Man Hughes will loan you one—and get up to this airport.”

  “Okay. What do you have up there?”

  “I’ve got some vehicles that need to be appropriated.”

  “We’ll be on the way in ten.”

  They signed off and Lee had those present with him get out and begin sweeping the compound on foot. The ride through had not revealed anything, but they still proceeded with caution. They left their convoy in the center of the small airstrip and gradually made their way between the hangars toward the other vehicles.

  As they passed by a particularly large hangar, Lee noticed Deuce giving the building a wide berth, his head hung low and his tail tucked in. He growled almost a constant stream of uncomfortable noises and kept his eyes fixed on that hangar.

  Lee sniffed the air, and it may have only been his imagination, but he thought there was a tinge of that rank, unwashed odor, tainting the smell of fresh rainfall. At one point, while the others continued on, Lee hung back and inclined his ear toward the hangar, standing perhaps twenty feet from it. He could not be certain, but he thought he heard something scrape and slide against the corrugated walls of the hangar.

  He did a visual check of the doors and found them padlocked.

  He thought perhaps there was good reason for that and decided not to go near it again.

  * * *

  The small white pickup truck pulled into the parking deck of the Johnston Memorial Hospital in Smithfield and began working its way up to the top level. It drove quickly and bore with it two occupants and an interesting piece of cargo.

  Jacob drove, while in the passenger seat Devon sat askew, clutching a rifle and staring uncomfortably out the back glass at the blanket-wrapped and rope-tied bundle lying secure in the bed of the pickup truck. Every time it moved, whether under its own power or because of the movement of the truck taking the turns, Devon tensed.

  They’d restrained it with Jacob’s homemade dogcatcher’s pole and then fallen upon it with the thick blanket, terrified and hoping that its teeth would not be able to bite through. Then they’d tied it around the waist and ankles with rope, pinning its arms to its torso and rendering it the squirming form in the back that now set Devon’s pulse racing.

  When they reached the top level of the parking deck, Doc Hamilton was already exiting the stairwell doors that accessed the main wing of the hospital. He was a small-framed man in his late forties, with a ring of black hair growing wild around a spotlessly blank dome of scalp. He had a sort of permanently paternal expression engraved on his face, and even now it only showed concern and perhaps a bit of confusion.

  Jacob put the pickup truck in park and stepped out, immediately making his way to the truck bed. Devon followed after a moment’s hesitation and a pained look that spoke of his desire to be anywhere else. Doc Hamilton watched the two men go to the rear of the pickup bed and lower the tailgate, craning his neck to see what was inside.

  “What can I help you with, gentlemen?”

  Inside the truck bed, the brown-bundled form suddenly thrashed and growled.

  Doc Hamilton took an involuntary step back. “What the hell is that?”

  Jacob looked quickly around to make sure there was no one else watching. He took three large steps and seized Doc Hamilton in a firm handshake. “I’m Doctor Jacob Weber, microbiologist with the CDC.”

  Recognition showed through in Doc Hamilton’s features. “Oh, you’re the guy from Virginia.”

  “Yes.” Jacob nodded curtly. “And I’m going to need a bed and as many soft r
estraints as you can find.”

  “Uh… okay…”

  Jacob laid his hand on Doc Hamilton’s shoulder. “And Doctor…”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know anything about sedation or anesthetics?”

  “Not really.”

  Jacob flashed a nervous smile. “I’m going to need you to learn… quickly.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The Prisoner

  Only two of the vehicles on the airstrip were out of commission: one of the LMTVs would not start for some unknown reason, and one of the Humvees looked like it had been cannibalized for parts. After finding the vehicles that were in good working order, they moved them over onto the tarmac and arranged them in a single-file line, so that the convoy was ready to go as soon as Harper arrived.

  On the northern end of the tarmac, they located the vestiges of what looked like an ammunition drop. The National Guard troops, assigned initially just to evacuate people, were ill equipped to handle the combat they were forced into. It was likely they had depleted their small armories in a very short amount of time. The ammunition drop had probably come out of the back of a Chinook from Fort Bragg.

  They found it splayed out like the carcass of an animal attacked by wolves. The parachute was cut away partially, still attached by two lengths of cord, and the cargo netting that held the pallet together was flayed open like a skin. The tops of the wooden boxes were scattered about, some of them in pieces, and most of the boxes were empty. About half of the pallet bore boxes designated as 5.56mm, but the other half was .50-cal. There was not a single box of 5.56mm left, but they were able to find three untouched boxes of .50-cal.

  They took what they could get and made sure each Humvee had at least one hundred rounds in its gun.

  Thirty minutes after their conversation on the radio ended, Harper and his three people showed up, crammed into an old Toyota Camry that puttered onto the airfield. Lee waved to them as they pulled up and extricated themselves from the car.

  “You guys made good time,” Lee remarked, shaking Harper’s hand.

  “I was eager to get away from Frankenstein and his creature.”

  Lee half smiled. “He’ll get good information. Maybe even something that can help us.”

  Harper shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t wanna be around the damn thing.”

  Lee changed the subject by pointing to the vehicles. “Right now, let’s get these things rolling toward Camp Ryder.”

  “Okay.” Harper regarded the convoy stretched down the tarmac, hands on his hips. “What’s the plan?”

  “Me and LaRouche will take the lead Humvee, Wilson and Lucky in the rear Humvee. Everyone else just grab a vehicle and follow the leader.” Lee shifted his feet. “Soon as we get out of this airport, I’m gonna pick up speed, and I’m not letting up until we get to Camp Ryder, so stay with me. I don’t want to get bogged down.”

  Harper nodded but looked concerned. “When we get back, we gotta talk.”

  Lee met his gaze. “Yeah. Same here.”

  The group split up to their separate vehicles and the convoy got rolling. Lee kept his Humvee at a steady forty-five-mile-per-hour clip as they moved away from the airport and back onto the surface streets. The fencing and trash flowed by them in streaks without detail or texture. A small break in the clouds showed a glimpse of white, sun-brightened clouds, cresting above their dark, damp underbellies. The hole in the sky drifted with the wind, opened wider, and then eventually collapsed on itself after revealing a sliver of blue sky.

  The wind was picking up, blowing the dreary rain clouds out, and bringing colder weather in behind it. Flurries of brown leaves skipped across the roadway, caught in the gusts. Lee eyed the occasional house as they passed by. There was a quality to everything now, even in the houses that were not clearly ransacked, a grainy, worn-out feeling about them. This indistinct quality to everything was as pervasive here as it was in the cities, and Lee believed probably across the entire country. Without the people who had once inhabited these areas, a wasteland was all that was left, and you could feel it like a chill in your bones.

  Scavenging from these houses, Lee felt like an archaeologist, staring in wonder at the things humanity had once held dear to them. Ornate clocks and sets of fine china. Placards and degrees and trophies. The things people were most proud of, the things displayed on mantels and walls, were now the things that were the first to be left behind.

  They continued down unused streets, driving through long stretches of country and short clusters of neighborhoods and intersections with old abandoned gas stations long since tapped of any fuel. At intersections they slowed just enough to make the turn, but never stopped. And if they were passing straight through the intersection, Lee didn’t even tap on the brakes.

  Just before it happened, Lee had sunk deep into a memory, triggered by some unique and fleeting sensations, a combination of numbers on a mental lock that opened up the dusty safe where things long forgotten and pushed aside were stored. The things locked inside were impressions, images and bits of time, like clips of film. Sometimes just a feeling or an emotion.

  The trigger was a gust of wind through the open windows that bore with it that musty, oaky scent so reminiscent of fall. The cold air seeped down past his collar, and the smell was the smell of leaf piles on an autumn day, and the sensation of lying there, the chill on his neck and on his cheeks and nose.

  He was young in this memory, and his soul was still light, and the world maintained its wonder.

  His memory was the sensation of the leaves, dry on top and wet on the bottom.

  The feeling, almost slick against his fingers, of cold dew clinging to old wood in the early-morning shade—a ladder of boards nailed to the side of the tree that led up to the top and felt so incredibly high that his pulse raced.

  It was the image of his childhood hiking boots with their red laces, and how they felt, heavy with mud as he tramped through the woods after his father.

  It was the feeling of his blue jacket, the inside flannel so warm, but the metal zipper cold every time it touched his neck.

  The earthy smell of pecans and the ripe, gritty feeling of their hulls as he gathered them in his pockets.

  And it was into these memories that a ghost suddenly appeared, a being from another time, another place, transposed there strangely into his childhood among fall leaves and tree forts and hiking trails. All those images disappeared like a sudden gale of wind dissipating a cloud of smoke that hung in the air, and his memories became his perceptions of the present.

  Blacktop stretching out before him.

  Empty trees to either side.

  A sign that stated the speed limit was fifty miles per hour.

  And the ghost—a man—standing there in the center of the road, his legs straddling the double yellow line and his arms spread out wide, his hands open, palms revealed and empty. He wore a MultiCam uniform, and a matching boonie hat shrouded his bowed head.

  Lee stamped on the brakes and the Humvee skidded to a stop just a few yards short of the man. Lee must have grabbed his rifle and exited the Humvee, because the next thing that registered was how much colder the wind had gotten in the last half hour of driving. He stared down the barrel of his M4 as he approached the man in the road, and he realized he was yelling.

  “Get on the ground! Get the fuck on the ground!”

  The man complied, moving slowly and deliberately as he lowered himself so that he was facedown on the roadway, his legs and arms spread-eagle.

  “Do not look up!” Lee shouted as he continued to approach.

  He could hear boots behind him. LaRouche was there beside him, also pointing his rifle at the man on the ground, but his eyes were fixed on Lee. “Captain! What are you doing?”

  “Make sure this motherfucker doesn’t have any weapons, and get him in the back of a truck,” Lee ordered. “I’ll keep him covered, but we need to move quickly.”

  “Uh, Captain, I think he’s military…”

 
“I know he’s fucking military!” Lee snapped. “You’re gonna hafta trust me on this one, LaRouche. Pat him down and detain him!”

  LaRouche gave a slight shake of his head but turned his eyes toward the man in the road. “Sir! Keep looking down at the ground. Put your hands on your head and interlock your fingers. Don’t move from that position, or you will be shot.”

  Again, the man on the ground complied.

  Lee stood with his feet spread wide, his rifle addressed toward the man’s torso, and his finger hovering outside the trigger guard. LaRouche crossed the short distance between them and took hold of the man’s arms, pulling them behind his back and then securing them with a single large zip tie from his vest. As the hands were secured, Lee shifted his attention from the man in the road to the woods around them. He felt naked and exposed.

  “This is not a trap,” the man on the ground said loudly. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

  At the sound of his voice, Lee jerked, tingled uncomfortably, like a star bursting from his core out to his extremities.

  When he looked back around, LaRouche was pulling the man to his feet. Lee took two steps and stood directly in front of them. The boonie hat was unsettled and fell from the man’s head. Short, sandy hair with a long, crescent-shaped scar running from the top of his head down to his ear—a scar Lee knew came from a boating accident many years ago.

  The man raised his head. “How are you, Lee?”

  Lee bared his teeth. “Brian…”

  The man smiled hesitantly.

  Then Lee delivered a right hook to the man’s jaw and knocked him unconscious.

  On the ground in front of Lee, the man called Brian lay on his back, his eyelids fluttering, while that strange knockout groan came from his throat. Lee ripped the shemagh from around his neck and used it to quickly blindfold the man on the ground. As he worked, his eyes scanned the woods again.