by D. J. Molles
The priest walked out, leaving Lee to his thoughts.
* * *
They woke early in the morning and began packing.
Prior to going topside, Lee checked the cameras that monitored the outside of the bunker to make sure there were no unwanted guests who had come upon the tents and pickup truck during the night. All appeared to be as deserted as they had left it.
To be cautious, Lee gave Harper an M4 from the enormous gun locker in the supply room and the two men went topside to investigate. It was warm and humid outside. It smelled mostly of rank ash from the burning bodies the night before that still smoldered in a pit of burned twigs and branches. The two of them checked around and inside the tents, and inside the truck as well. Nothing had been moved, nothing had been tampered with. Nothing attacked them as they were making their rounds.
They went back down in the elevator.
Harper rubbed his eyes and spoke in a groggy croak. “So, how much food do you think we can bring back?”
Lee sighed. “As much as we can, but still not enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that pickup truck is only going to hold maybe twenty pails of food. That’ll feed a group the size of Camp Ryder for about a week.”
Harper’s eyes went wide. “That’s it?”
The elevator settled to the bunker floor and the doors opened.
“Yeah.” Lee stepped through, heading for the supply room. “I’ve got more food in here than we can carry. Each one of these bunkers is built to supply about a hundred people for a year. But as you can see, transporting it can be difficult, and it’s not a permanent solution.”
“So…” Harper followed him in.
“Guns and ammo, Harper.” Lee pointed to the gun locker, which was an adjoining room with a big steel door on it. Inside were two hundred M4 assault rifles and eight hundred thousand rounds of 5.56mm ammunition. “With better defenses, we can move out beyond the comfort zone of the fence. We can hunt, we can fish, we can start farming. The food stores are just a buffer to get you guys into subsistence living.” Lee keyed a code into a terminal and the door to the gun locker clicked and swung open, revealing the rows of assault rifles, neatly standing at attention. “In order to reestablish industry, you have to first reestablish agriculture. Back in the day before everyone worked in an office, hocking things made in a factory, they used to work in that factory, making those things. And before that they worked on farms to feed themselves. The only reason farms still exist is because the people in the factories need to have something to eat.
“We’ve got to learn to live off the land again. Once humans do that, everything else falls into place. Civilization is the fruit of a tree that grows its roots in agriculture.”
Harper smirked. “You come up with that on your own?”
Lee smiled wryly. “No. A sociology professor I knew.”
They began pulling what they needed off the shelves. Josh and Miller both got an M4 carbine and a shoulder sling magazine pouch with six mags per, and then they were sent topside to guard the truck while the others brought the supplies up to them. Doc quietly took his corner of the supply room to accumulate the medical supplies he felt they needed. Lee provided him with a large duffel bag with foam-insert compartments so he could organize the different items he was taking.
They loaded the truck bed up as tightly as they could with rice, oats, beans, and dried milk. In addition to the five-gallon pails, they threw in a few cases of MREs and some freeze-dried and dehydrated fruits and vegetables. They were able to fit slightly more than Lee had originally thought, and with the MREs and fruits and vegetables, Lee thought they had enough food to last Camp Ryder between eight and ten days if they subsisted entirely off of the supplies. With hunting and scavenging made safer by having weapons and ammunition to defend themselves, they could probably stretch it to a month.
Lee armed Doc the same as he had the other three men from Camp Ryder. He stowed ten extra M4s in the truck and was able to squeeze in five hundred rounds of ammunition for each rifle, along with a bundle of spare mags. He took four large duffels and crammed two of them full of various sizes of BDU pants and the field jackets he had promised Marie. Though Lee preferred coyote tan and MultiCam for his own personal gear, the powers that be had equipped his bunkers with clothing all in OD green. Perhaps because it was cheapest, or perhaps simply because that was the box that some bureaucrat decided to check.
The other two duffels he stuffed with blankets, ponchos, and poncho liners. The four large duffels he was able to fit in the passenger area of the pickup truck, though they crowded Doc and Josh. Miller had just enough room in the bed to sit his butt on a pail of oats. He would not be comfortable, but hopefully they would make better time on the trip back.
Though there wasn’t any room left in the truck for ordnance, Lee took a large backpack and filled it with a few bricks of C4 and some detonators, four claymore mines, and then some communications equipment, consisting of four encrypted long-range radios and two digital repeaters that looked like black boxes. He cushioned everything with a couple of poncho liners. He opened a crate of grenades and filled the three grenade pouches on his tactical vest, then swung the vest over his head and settled the weighty thing tightly onto his torso.
Father Jim’s people were kind enough to help with carrying the supplies upstairs and loading them into the pickup truck. When the truck was loaded and ready, he gave Father Jim’s people five M4s, five shoulder sling magazine pouches, each filled with six thirty-round magazines, three cases of MREs, three boxes of dehydrated vegetables and fruits, and five backpacks to help carry their supplies. After everyone was packed and accounted for topside, Lee sealed the door to the bunker again.
He gave Father Jim one of the long-range radios and instructions on how to get to Camp Ryder. He suggested they check the used auto lot near I-95, as most of the cars seemed untouched, most would have gas, and the keys were probably somewhere inside the dealership. Father Jim listened carefully to the instructions. Lee expected him to object to stealing the cars on the grounds of some misguided morality, but he simply nodded and thanked Lee for the tip.
He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “I would like to leave you with something, Captain Harden. In case we don’t have a chance to speak again.”
Lee shifted his weight. “You’ll be fine, Father.”
The priest placed the paper in Lee’s hand. It was thin and waxy, and it crackled like tissue paper in Lee’s palm. He opened his hand and looked down at the paper, seeing the double columns of fine-printed words and the gold inlay along the edge of the page.
Lee raised his brow. “I hope you didn’t tear this from your own Bible.”
Father Jim smiled and shrugged. “I didn’t have a piece of paper to write it down on.” He patted Lee on the shoulder. “I circled a passage for you. Don’t worry, I won’t make you read it right now.”
“Thank you.” Lee didn’t really know what else to say to the man.
“Thank you, Captain. And, God willing, we will see you at Camp Ryder.” The man looked incongruous with his neatly combed hair, thick glasses, and tucked-in shirt, standing there holding an M4 with six extra magazines slung over his shoulder. The image brought a quirky smile to Lee’s lips.
He held the piece of paper in his fist and climbed into the passenger seat of the Dodge Ram 2500. The big machine rumbled to life and the vehicle shuddered, then idled as Lee situated himself and his gear, propping his rifle between his knees and closing the passenger door.
Through the open passenger window as the truck began to roll forward, Lee flicked the priest a salute with two fingers. “You guys be safe.”
The group waved as they departed, leaving Lee feeling odd about the entire incident. He wasn’t sure whether it was Father Jim’s stalwart belief that Lee was guided by some divine power or the easy manner that they had accepted Lee’s decisions. Lee shook his head, wondering if leaving them behind was the right c
hoice. But as with any decision, it was better made than waffled over.
He opened his hand and spread the folded piece of paper it held. The page was small, from a pocket Bible of some sort. The priest had circled a passage that began with Romans 13:4: “For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that practices evil.”
Lee stared at the page for a long moment, then looked up into the side-view mirror, but Father Jim and his group had already disappeared as the dirt road wound farther away from them. Eventually he folded the page up again and stuck it in the cargo pocket of his pants where it would remain next to the good-luck lottery ticket Jack had given him.
CHAPTER 12
Smithfield
Harper brought the pickup to a stop just before turning left onto the service road that led along I-95. The sun had come out briefly that morning, but the wind had kicked up as they left the bunker, and a thin gray cloud cover had set in and grown thick and dark, the sky’s belly swollen with rain. The wind came in harsh gusts that whipped up dirt and leaves and pelted the side of the truck with it.
Harper looked unsurely up at the storm clouds. “It’s gonna get nasty out there.”
Lee didn’t wait to see if anyone would join him in Smithfield because he didn’t want to put any pressure on them. This wasn’t what they’d signed up for, and he didn’t expect them to want to put themselves in any more danger than they already had. He grabbed his backpack and pulled it into his lap.
He turned and extended a hand to Harper. “If you guys hit any roadblocks, just open up on ’em with all four rifles. They won’t be expecting that type of resistance and they’ll bug out. Whatever happens, you just make sure these supplies get back to Camp Ryder, got that?”
Harper nodded. “When should we expect you back?”
Lee stepped out of the truck, felt the wind tugging at him, and squinted against the flying dust. “I’d like to say a couple of days, but it will probably be longer.” He pointed a finger at him. “And don’t come looking for me, got it? For all you know I found some hot, single ladies who need a man, so don’t spoil it for me.”
They chuckled briefly.
It didn’t take long for Harper to be serious again. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Nope.” Lee slung into the backpack and cinched the straps up. “But it’s what I do.”
“Okay.” Harper nodded. “You be safe.”
Lee gave him a short wave. “You too.”
“Fuck this shit,” Doc said with bitter resignation. He grabbed his rifle and opened his door, stepping quickly out and slamming it behind him. “I’ve gotta stay with the captain.”
Lee regarded him curiously. He was surprised, to say the least. Doc had argued to come with them, then whined and moaned the entire time, and now seemed resolute to accompany Lee on what would probably be the most dangerous portion of the trip. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or tell the guy to get the hell back in the truck.
Harper was flabbergasted. “What? No. I’m serious, Doc. If I don’t come back with you, Bus will kill me.”
Doc’s hair flew wildly in the wind and he had to raise his voice over the sound of it. “Then come with us, Harper. We’ll all have a better chance if we stick together. And I have to stay with the captain. I’ve already made up my mind.”
“But…”
“I’m staying with the captain,” Doc repeated.
The other four men were speechless for the better part of a minute. The silence was filled with strange looks, questioning gestures, shrugs, and noncommital wandering eyes. The general feeling was one of, Well, what the fuck do we do now?
Miller broke it first by snatching up his rifle and standing in the bed of the truck. He stretched his legs languidly. “Well, let’s get a move on. Daylight’s wastin’.”
As Miller prepared to jump down out of the bed, Harper shouted, “Alright! Shitfire! Everyone back in the truck!”
Lee put a thumb in the strap of his pack. “I could always use your help.”
“Yeah.” Harper rolled his eyes. “I’m coming along with you. But there’s no sense in walking through town when we can drive.”
Josh never officially voiced his opinion, but neither did he object when Doc and Lee got back into the truck and they began driving toward the heart of Smithfield.
As it turned out, the truck would only get them so far.
* * *
They were on Brogden Road, they discovered. They stayed on it until it ended into Brightleaf Boulevard, where they made a right. The intersection was clustered with a few odd businesses, such as Don Pancho’s Meat Market, Biscuit Stop, and the Coffee Pot. Behind these small fronts, Lee could make out the suburban heart of the town: rows of houses built in the 1980s, some left to wither over the years, some kept in good condition. All of them looked neglected now, hunched quietly in the mess of their waist-high lawns.
The jams and pileups of collisions were sparse enough along Brightleaf Boulevard that Harper was able to easily move around them and between them. Many of the wrecks held dark shapes, slumped over against cracked glass and deflated airbags. Most of the abandoned cars had been pushed to the side, where they lined the road like a silent crowd of onlookers that had parted their ranks to allow the five men to pass.
Nearly every house they passed was draped with a white bedsheet. It hung from a gutter or flapped from a window. Some had been ripped from the houses by the storm winds and now clung desperately to trees and shrubs.
This was a sign of infection.
Stay in your homes.
Hang a white cloth outside your house so we know a member of your household is sick.
Help is on the way.
The doors on many of these houses stood open, like the gaping mouth of someone who had died in mid-scream. Like the kid Harper had gutted with that bayonet. Like the dirty redneck boys whom Lee had gunned down for killing Sam’s father.
The people in those houses had stayed inside, with their white flags waving outside, slipping into madness and killing one another. Now those houses looked empty and Lee wondered whether they had lingered here in the town they had called home or run off into the surrounding wilderness and packed together like wolves.
The pickup truck swerved and Harper swore. “Lot of bodies on the road.”
Looking out over the dashboard, Lee could see dozens of dark mounds, like trash scattered in the roadway. Some were curled up, others splayed out, spread-eagle. They were in varying states of dress: Some wore business suits, others wore oil-stained coveralls, some wore bathing suits, and still others wore nothing at all.
Many had dark red trails behind them, like bloody comets. Those were the ones who had kept crawling. Interspersed through these remains were pockmarks in the cement, like small meteoric craters.
Lee remembered a checkpoint outside of Fallujah where he had stood with one of his squads when an old, tan Mercedes started toward the roadblock. It happened so fast, they barely had time to fire a warning shot from the .50-cal, and the car began to accelerate toward them. Every gun in that squad started firing, and the Mercedes jerked and swerved off into a ditch, the windshield and door panels shredded with bullet holes.
When they had ventured out to inspect the vehicle, Lee remembered a hand lying in the road, sheared off by one of the big .50-caliber rounds. All around that hand were the same pockmarks, where their bullets had gouged out chunks of the cement.
Lee pointed suddenly. “Heads up.”
Their progress came to a halt at Brightleaf Boulevard and Woodall Lane, where a line of cement barriers stood, concertina wire strung across the tops. Behind the hastily erected cement wall, a police vehicle and a National Guard Humvee sat with the doors open, abandoned. Lee stared at the barricade, his eyes sweeping along and piecing together what had happened.
Mashed headlong into the barricade was a small white sedan. T
he windshield was riddled with bullet holes, just like that tan Mercedes so many years ago. To either side of the cement barricade, the shoulder of the road had been blocked with tangles of concertina wire. In among these metal brambles were bodies, hanging in the wire, as though they had tried to blindly march through. In places, their arms or legs hung off them loosely by a thread of gristle. Blood had coagulated in stagnant pools beneath them. One section of barbed wire was choked so severely with dead bodies that they had flattened out the barbed wire, creating a bridge across.
The gusting wind made the spirals of concertina wire shiver.
A flurry of trash drifted across the road.
“These people…” Harper’s voice trembled. “Were they just gunned down?”
Lee took a look at the big .50-cal mounted on top of the Humvee, tilted back and pointed skyward now. Vehicle-mounted .50-cals were hardly typical crowd-control fare. They were made for combat, and that was what they were used for.
“I don’t think they were regular people,” Lee observed quietly. “I think these barricades were put up to keep out the infected. Create a safe zone to evacuate out of.”
“Doesn’t look like it worked too well.” Doc sounded nervous.
“No,” Lee agreed. “It doesn’t.”
“Should we try to get around on some other roads?” Harper looked to the left, where Woodall Lane stretched in a straight line, deeper into the city.
Lee followed his gaze but saw only a jam of vehicles and bodies at every intersection. “It looks like they barricaded those streets as well. We could spend half the day trying to find a way to drive our truck through.”
Harper tapped the wheel. “You wanna go in on foot?”
“Yes.”
“What about the supplies?”
“We’ll have to leave someone here.”
Josh’s hand shot up. “Yeah, I’ll stay. I’ll stay with the truck.”
Lee turned in his seat to look at Doc and Miller, who was sticking his head in through the back glass again. “Someone has to stay with Josh.”
