Aftermath

by D. J. Molles

The unit was a black box with a five-inch screen. Below the screen was a small, glossy black square, which Lee placed his thumb on. The little square depressed slightly when he applied pressure, activating the thumb scanner. It took the device a moment to verify his print and also to check for the presence of a pulse, so interested parties could not access the device simply because they possessed Lee’s thumbs.

  Oh, military industry, you’ve thought of everything.

  The screen lit up into a ten-by-ten grid, each square containing a letter and a number. The grid was randomized each time the thumbprint was verified, so the same grid never came up twice, keeping prying eyes from copying Lee’s code simply by pattern memorization. Lee carefully tapped out the appropriate alphanumerics.

  The screen changed and displayed ten options: Bunker #1, Bunker #2, and so on to Bunker #10. He selected Bunker #4 and the screen changed once again to a topographical map of the area. At the very borders of the screen, Lee could see the framework of the triangle created by I-95, I-795, and I-40. A small red arrow was in the center of that frame, pointing southeast. A short distance from that red arrow was a blue dot.

  “Gettin’ close.” Lee raised his head and watched the road roll slowly by them.

  They had not come across any roadblocks since passing over I-95, which was a stroke of good luck and would hopefully have them in the bunker before dark. Now the sun was dipping down closer to the horizon, just beginning to lick at the treetops. They had perhaps an hour before it was dark.

  Lee instructed Harper to slow down a bit so that they did not miss their turn. After another long mile cruising at about thirty miles per hour, Lee found what he was looking for and waved at Harper to stop. To their right, a narrow gravel road led away from the blacktop. The front was barred by a plain red gate with a big padlocked chain wrapped around it. The whole ensemble was very low-key.

  When Project Hometown was in its planning stages, it was decided that a simple, nondescript gate would probably keep more people out than a ten-foot-high fence marked GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. The thinking was that, in an event of social and governmental collapse, people would seek out abandoned government facilities, believing that food and water and medical supplies would be more easily found in these places. With no personnel available to guard the gate, people might find something marked as government property more attractive.

  The pickup truck pulled into the mouth of the dirt road and Lee hopped out. He carried no keys, but approached the padlock with purpose. Though the large padlock looked like just another piece of rusty metal, Lee placed his GPS device against it and it popped open with a tiny whir of electronic servos. Lee pocketed the GPS and pulled off the big lock, letting the chain fall with a metallic rasp. He swung the gate open and began walking back toward the truck.

  And that was where he stopped.

  Everyone in the truck stiffened when they saw him freeze.

  He turned his face into the breeze and lifted his nose, taking a few quick sniffs. Then he looked back to where the dirt road disappeared into the trees. There was a distinct smell coming from the direction of his bunker, a pungent odor Lee had not smelled in a long time. It was a nauseously sweet smell that set his hairs to standing on end and his stomach to churning. It was the smell of burning hair mixed with charred meat.

  He looked through the passenger side window at Harper. “You smell that?”

  Harper’s nose wrinkled slightly and he nodded.

  Lee swore quietly to himself, then stared off into the woods for a moment. When he looked back, that hard edge had set on his face again. “I don’t know who’s burning bodies over there, but we need to approach cautiously. We gotta go in on foot.”

  The other four men did not appear thrilled, but they kept their opinions to themselves.

  Lee quickly scouted far enough out that they could pull the pickup truck out of sight of the roadway. He rechained and locked the fence, then jogged back to the four men, who now stood at the tailgate, looking nervous and gripping their rifles like talismans to ward off evil. They were all thinking about the roadblock.

  Josh, in particular, looked pale, and an unhealthy sweat had broken out on his face.

  Lee approached him and put a hand on the back of his neck. “You gotta buck up, Josh.”

  “I don’t wanna kill any normal people,” he mumbled to the ground.

  “Well, that ain’t up to you.” Lee shook him. “If things go down, you gotta do what has to be done to stay alive, you hear me?”

  Josh nodded.

  “You guys remember tactical spacing?”

  There was a chorus of “Uh-huh”s.

  “That’s what I want. I’m gonna be point and take you guys through the woods. You all stack up behind Harper.” He looked at the older man. “Harper, just keep me in sight. You don’t have to be up on my ass, you just gotta be able to see me. And if I start shooting, you all hit the ground and don’t engage until I tell you to, understand?”

  “Got it.”

  “Alright.” Lee had traded the Savage .308 for an SKS. He put a palm to the base of the magazine and then pulled the chambering lever back an inch to make sure there was a live cartridge in the chamber. The other four men followed suit.

  Five rifle bolts snicked into place.

  Locked and loaded.

  He jogged out ahead of them and then dipped into the woods. Behind him, he could hear the soft movement of his companions taking to the forest. They moved well for civilians, but noise discipline and woodland movement were not just for tactical teams and hunters anymore. Everyone had to learn how to survive, and those who didn’t, didn’t.

  He ducked under the arms of trees and slipped quietly over logs. He kept his profile low and small—bent at the waist with his head down. His feet moved deftly, choosing the softest ground that would hide the sound of his approach. His eyes scanned up and down, deciding which path to take through the woods, and then looking ahead for threats. He listened carefully for anything out of the ordinary.

  The smell of burning flesh became stronger, though it still only came in jarring whiffs. Just when he would begin to think he had lost the scent, it would roll across on the wind and slap him in the face again. Every time he smelled it, he felt that dull ache behind his eyes and his stomach went weak. The smell had always given him headaches and made him nauseated.

  As Lee approached the clearing where his bunker was buried deep in the earth, he saw the flickering flames and stopped, taking a knee. Behind him the constant soft rustle of the other four ceased.

  Ahead and in the clearing, Lee could make out three tents. Two of them were factory-made dome tents that you could find in any sporting goods store, and the third was a crude construction of rope and tarp but was the biggest of the three. The tents formed a loose V shape around a burning jumble of sticks and dry branches with flames glowing deep inside and licking out at the air. Protruding from the fire, Lee could see the charred claw of a human hand. A foot jutted up, stiff and erect like a piece of a mannequin, smoke curling off the flaking skin. Lee couldn’t see any other body parts, but due to the size of the fire, he suspected more than one body was burning.

  A middle-aged man with short brown hair and thick glasses stood at the edge of the fire, leaning on a shovel and staring vacantly into the flames. He wore Dockers that Lee imagined had once been clean and pressed but were now a wrinkly, sooty mess. Tucked into those Dockers was a short-sleeved button-up shirt that was in about the same condition as the pants. The man’s face was naturally lean but sported a good growth of beard. Lee thought he looked like a straight-laced kind of person, or at least he might have been before all of this. He looked like he might have been an accountant or a bank teller. Something boring. The kind of guy who ate plain oatmeal for breakfast along with his black coffee. The kind of guy who never drank more than three beers at a time.

  Lee looked past this strange contradiction of man and activity and could see movement in the large tent made of rope and tarp, though he could
not count how many others were there. Beyond the tents, Lee could see the hulk of his bunker’s door, jutting up out of the earth like a half-buried monolith. It was still locked and secured. It did not appear that the straight-laced man or any of his friends had gotten inside.

  Lee slunk quietly back into the woods.

  He found the others still kneeling down a few yards back. They stared expectantly at Lee as he sidled up to them. They bombarded him with hushed questions.

  “Is there someone there?”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  Lee shook his head. “I don’t know if they’re hostile yet.”

  Harper gritted his teeth. “Like we didn’t know if the people at the roadblock were hostile?”

  “What do you propose?” Lee turned a flinty glare on him.

  “I say we just take them out,” Miller mumbled.

  Josh looked squeamish.

  Lee poked a finger in Miller’s chest. “We can’t just take them out, Miller! They could be survivors!”

  “Or,” Harper hissed, “they could be fucking assholes like at the roadblock.”

  “Fine.” Lee wiped sweat from his eyes. “You guys take positions at the woodline. I will approach with no weapon and my hands up. I will try to feel them out. If things go badly, I’m just gonna drop to the ground and you guys hose ’em.”

  Everyone looked grim. But it was the best plan they had.

  It was the only plan they had.

  “Here.” Lee offered his SKS to Doc. “If trouble starts, this will give you a little more bang for your buck.”

  Doc looked up at him and Lee could see a level of resentment that he wasn’t sure he had done anything to deserve. But it was there nonetheless. Doc snatched up the rifle. “Does it get easy?”

  “What?” Lee’s face tightened.

  “Killing people. Does it get easy for you?”

  Lee just stared at him. He didn’t glare; he didn’t sneer. His gaze was even and blank, because behind his eyes he was actually considering the question. Though Doc had clearly meant it as a jab, Lee shrugged off the childish insult. Like so many others before him, Doc relied on tougher men than himself to stay safe, and when forced to raise his hand to protect himself or those around him, he resented those men for not being able to solve all of his problems.

  “Yes,” Lee stated truthfully. “It does get easier.”

  The party broke. Harper took the center with Doc, while Miller and Josh split out to the left and right. Lee gave them a brief moment, and then began to follow. They moved into position as though they’d drilled on it a thousand times, and Lee had to admit, he felt a faint level of pride in them. If they could accomplish this after a few hours of practice, imagine what a few months of drills would do for them?

  When each man had settled into his position, Lee stood up fully; raised his arms high above his head with his hands open, palms out; and stepped from the trees.

  The man staring into the fire jumped like he’d had a cattle prod shoved up his ass and he snatched up the shovel, bearing it like a club. He began shouting, “I got another one! There’s another one!”

  “Whoa!” Lee stood at the woodline and didn’t come any farther. “Calm down! I’m not infected!”

  People were suddenly pouring out of all three tents. Lee thought there might be at least a dozen of them. They were young and old, men and women, and a few children. They all were lean, as everyone was these days, their faces dirty and hard, and they all were brandishing some form of weapon, down to the smallest child, which was a little girl Lee guessed was not much older than Abby. She held a hammer.

  Lee tried to sound calm and in control. “I’m not sick. I’m not here to hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  The straight-laced man didn’t let his guard down, but the group’s instant aggression kind of stalled out and everyone just stood around for a moment, trading hesitant glances. When he spoke again, his voice came out stronger than Lee had expected.

  “Who are you?”

  Lee eyed the man. Of course, he had a specific greeting that he was supposed to use when coming in contact with survivors. But somehow it seemed less likely to sound legitimate when he was wearing a smiley face T-shirt. He decided to go with a simple, “Captain Harden. US Army.”

  The leader and apparent speaker for the group seemed to consider this, rolling it around in his mind like he was inspecting it. While the man thought things over, Lee could sense his companions from Camp Ryder behind him, ready to start shooting at a moment’s notice. Lee’s legs were tensed slightly, ready to dive out of the way of the gunfire if the man made any false moves.

  The man tilted his head slightly. “Okay. Captain. Let’s assume that I believe you. My next questions would be, where is your weapon, where is your squad, and what are you doing wandering through the woods alone?”

  Lee went for blunt honesty. “My weapon is behind me in the woods, where my men are pointing guns at you right now. And I’m not wandering. I’ve come for the bunker.” Lee readied himself to dive to the ground.

  There was a ripple of shock as he told them he had men pointing guns at them, but it was silenced almost immediately when he mentioned the bunker. It was like Lee had said some secret password in a language only this group could understand. They began to look at one another and speak excitedly. Even the straight-laced man’s expression softened and turned into a faint, hopeful smile.

  He lowered the shovel. “Dear God… this is your bunker?”

  Lee looked around at the faces staring at them. Now all eyes were on him, completely focused on the next words he was going to say, willing him to say, Yes, it’s my bunker. Instead, he decided to address a more pressing matter. “Can we talk without holding weapons to each other?”

  The speaker for the group seemed so enthralled by talk of the bunker, it was almost like he’d forgotten about the men in the woods or that his group were still holding their various bludgeoning weapons. His eyes darted for a moment and Lee thought he saw a bit of the same fear that had come out before, but it was quelled with a slight nod. “Yes. We should speak reasonably with each other. No need for any bloodshed.”

  Lee made a waving motion and his four men emerged from the woods. They didn’t point their rifles directly at the group, but they held them tight and ready. Their eyes flitted back and forth between the dozen survivors and Lee, trying to get a feel for what was going on. At the sight of the men, the group of survivors tensed and a ripple of fearful exclamations came out. The speaker reached behind him, taking the hands of a young woman and a boy.

  He turned his head slightly. “Trust in the Lord,” he said to them quietly. Then he turned back to Lee, the suspicion evident in his voice. “You don’t look like soldiers.”

  Lee glanced to the men from Camp Ryder and gestured for them to lower their weapons. The very least he could do was show this man and his people that they weren’t there to murder them. “No, they’re not soldiers. They’re just civilians who are helping me get a job done. Please, let’s be calm here. We have no intention of harming anyone.”

  The tension in the air eased, but only slightly.

  “Can you prove to us who you are?” the speaker asked.

  Lee held up a hand, his eyes narrowing. “I think I’ve been very accomodating so far. Let me ask a few questions.”

  Brief hesitation. Then, “Okay.”

  “Who are you?” Lee asked.

  The man seemed to brace himself, as though he thought the answer might bring an attack. “I’m Father James Shultz. Everyone calls me Father Jim. The people behind me are members of my congregation.”

  Lee pointed to the fire, now blazing hotly between them. “Whose body is that?”

  Father Jim looked suddenly very serious. “They were a few very sick people.”

  “Infected?”

  Father Jim nodded again. “We could do nothing for them.”

  Lee eyed him. The man stood erect, his
people behind him. They were afraid but trusting. Trust in the Lord. Lee had been correct in his initial assessment of the man’s occupation. A priest was about on par excitement-wise with an accountant. But there was something else behind his tortoise-shell glasses that spoke of violence. Lee wasn’t sure why he asked the next question, other than to see how the man would react. “And how does that sit with your beliefs?”

  Father Jim swallowed. “Yes. I struggle with that.”

  Lee crossed his arms. “So why are you here?”

  The priest turned toward his people. “We were taking shelter in our church near here, but a group of men burned it down. We lost many of our people there.” He met Lee’s gaze, and there was that flicker in his eyes again. “I lived there, right next to the church, and I hunted these woods for years. I remember when this bunker was built. There was nothing out here but trees. And then, suddenly, there’s a bunker? Never saw the crews working on it, and it was already covered in leaves and moss when I first found it, like it had been there for ages, but I knew it hadn’t been more than a few months since I passed through the area. It was always very mysterious to me.

  “When our church burned down, I knew this was where we had to come. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time, but I trusted the Lord.” His eyes suddenly looked misty, and his voice was low and strained. “We’ve been here for three weeks now, hungry, thirsty, in danger every day. We have waited. And prayed, every day, that you would come. And here you are. An answer to our prayers!”

  Lee shifted uncomfortably. “I’m gonna speak to my guys for a quick second.”

  Looking eager to know what the hell was going on, the four men from Camp Ryder quickly huddled up at the edge of the woods where quiet conversation would not be overheard. Lee stepped into the circle, that hardness now ebbing from his face.

  He looked to Harper first. “What do you think?”

  The older man blew air between his lips. “Well, there’s not much we can do for them.”

  “We can feed them,” Lee offered. “Give them some water and guns.”

  “And then what?” Doc fingered his hair back behind his ears. “Just leave them here?”