by D. J. Molles
He tried to remember the abandoned cars and wrecks that dotted Highway 210, heading west, away from Smithfield and back toward Camp Ryder. They seemed to sneak up on him, jumping out of the rain and forcing him to slam on the brakes and navigate around them at breakneck speeds. A few times, he clipped the shoulder and fishtailed, but he always quickly recovered. He couldn’t lose control.
Not now. Not when he was so close.
Fear and urgency.
He realized he’d been breathing heavily through his mouth and his tongue was becoming dry, so he closed it and worked up enough spit to coat his tongue again. He wanted to go faster, but if he went faster, he would crash, he was certain of it. Crash and die, and he would look like those battered, bloody messes that came into the ER, all covered in plastic tubes and oxygen masks and wires and beeping equipment. Except none of that modern technology would be there. There were no cell phones, no 911 to come save him, no medics to take him to a hospital and fix his broken body. He would lie in that smoking wreckage until the infected found him or he died from his injuries.
So the fear and urgency pushed him on, but he didn’t let them push too hard.
Because he had to make it back. He had to save Nicole.
Another abandoned vehicle loomed out at him, but it was a feint—the vehicle was far enough on the side of the road that he barely had to swerve to avoid it.
He took a look at his odometer.
TRIP A: 8.7 MI
He’d zeroed it out as he’d peeled out of Smithfield. Ten miles, he’d told Doc. Ten miles outside of Smithfield, we’ll set it up. We’ll get him when he’s coming back. That’ll be best, Doc. And then we’ll let her go. Won’t that be nice, Doc? To see her alive and well again? Just bring him to us. But don’t be late, Doc, don’t be late. Because if you don’t show up, I will slit her open. Yeah. I’ll slit her open from her pussy to her tits. Do you believe me, Doc? Do you believe me?
And Doc did.
He believed him.
And he couldn’t be late.
He slowed down now, because the odometer read 9.0 MI, and he knew the roadblock was coming soon. The staccato chatter of rain on his windshield settled to a dull drumming as his speed dropped from sixty miles per hour to forty miles per hour. The road before him came into focus a bit and he was able to see the sharp curve in the road ahead of him, maybe a quarter mile.
That would be it, he was certain.
He realized his hands hurt and he forced his grip on the steering wheel to relax, only to find them squeezing harder a moment later. His heart was pumping hard now, and the urgency was gradually being overshadowed by the fear. He did not like this. He did not like it one bit. But he had to. He had to do it. For Nicole.
He wished to God in that brief moment that he had never agreed to this. It would have been better for them both to die that hot afternoon, trapped in his parents’ house, trapped like rats while a big green Hummer and a pair of pickups pulled up on his parents’ lawn and men with guns started swarming the house. He should have just told them all to fuck off, then held Nicole tight for those last few seconds before they gunned them all down.
But even as he thought it, he knew it would not have happened like that. No, maybe for him it would have been quick and easy, but then again, maybe not. Maybe they would have made him watch, because they were like that. They did things like that to the people who didn’t cooperate. Yes, they would have made him watch, and then they would have killed him, painfully, but not Nicole. They would have kept her, like a toy. A pretty plaything to be handed out to the men when they did a good job.
Doc’s jaw was ratcheted down so hard on itself that it hurt his teeth.
No, he had to make the deal.
And here he was, completing that deal, and he just forced himself to think about Nicole. Everything would be okay in a little bit. Everything would be okay once this was over.
He realized he’d slowed to about twenty miles per hour as he crept into the turn.
The rain seemed to be letting up a bit now.
As predicted, they were waiting for him.
Two pickup trucks and that big green Hummer with the nasty machine gun on top. The Hummer faced him, glaring down the center of the road like a mean pit bull that’d just snapped its leash. The two pickups were angled in, taking up the rest of the road, like the smaller dogs that hung out with the big dog.
A man popped out of the top of the Hummer and grabbed the machine gun, swinging it in Doc’s direction. Then more men started jumping out of the pickups, all of them holding rifles like the one Lee had given him. They weren’t military though. Doc knew what they were, and why they were to be feared.
Criminals. Lowlifes. People who had trouble following the rules even before the world went to shit.
Lost causes, one and all.
Out of the four men who had come out of the pickup trucks, two stayed behind, pointing guns at Doc while the others began jogging toward him. He brought the pickup truck to a stop, not wanting them to perceive any accidental acceleration as aggression. He held his hands up, touching the ceiling. The M4 was still in the seat next to him. He didn’t even look at it. He didn’t want to give them an excuse to shoot him, because unlike the normal people like Miller and Harper and Josh, these guys looked for reasons to shoot people and had to be convinced not to.
They were “not to be fucked with.”
The two men stopped short and exchanged a confused look.
One of them, a tall, younger guy with a face covered in teardrop tattoos, crosses, and other nonsense, raised the rifle and shouted, “Get outta the fuckin’ truck!”
Doc slowly reached for the door handle and opened it.
“Yeah… move slow!” The tattooed man nodded. “Now keep your hands up! Turn around and face away from me!”
Doc complied. He stared down the road he had just come from.
“Now start walking backward toward me!”
And he began walking backward, thinking to himself that this was actually a very professional-sounding takedown, but that these men probably had experience with them, being that they were likely the subject of several police takedowns during their lifetimes.
“Okay, now kneel down!”
Doc kneeled, and then rough hands were patting him for weapons and hauling him to his feet. The hands spun Doc around, and then he was facing the guy with the tattoos and he could see that what he thought had been a cross at the corner of the man’s eye was actually a dagger pointed down. The guy grabbed Doc by the collar and got in his face. His breath stank like stale cigarette smoke and a hint of booze.
“Where the fuck’s the other guy?” he demanded.
Now the tattooed man’s companion joined. “Yeah! Where’re the others?”
“I… uh…” Doc realized his heart was pounding so hard he could barely speak. “They’re not here.”
“Oh my fuckin’ God.” The guy shoved Doc back. “Oh my fuckin’ God. Are you serious with this shit?”
Doc struggled to get the words out. “Yes… No… They’re not here.”
The tattooed man wiped rain out of his face and then pointed at Doc, shaking his head. “That’s your problem, man. Not mine. Good luck explaining that shit.”
From behind the two excited criminals, the back passenger door to the Hummer opened, and he stepped out. The source of Doc’s grief. He had made all the commands; he held all the power; everything had been his idea. The schemes and threats and the leverage had dominated Doc’s existence for so long that Doc had unconsciously built him up into a godlike status in his mind. A vengeful, hateful god. A god Doc served not because he wanted to, but because he was forced.
But he was just a man, and Doc realized it again as he watched him stride up, hunching his shoulders against the rain. He was thinner now than he had been when they’d first met. Then, he hadn’t been overweight, but he’d had a slight pot to his belly and no muscle mass to speak of. His face had been drawn, his eyes dark and sunken, and his teeth r
otting out from years of methamphetamine usage.
Now he looked taller, healthier. Any extra weight he’d had on him had vanished and his skin was stretched taut over cruel-looking cords of muscle. But his eyes were still dark. He’d been a harmless addict but had since become a sober psychopath.
The jeans he wore were snug on his legs, but not tight. The knees and seams had begun to fray a bit, but they were not yet torn. He wore old, black steel-toed boots—what he lovingly called his “shit-kickers”—the type you might see on a good old-fashioned neo-Nazi. On his right side was an old .357 revolver holstered in a low-slung leather gun belt. On his left side hung a giant Bowie knife. He wore a faded, dirty gray shirt with a shamrock on it. His hair was shorter than Doc remembered, and his lean, angular face sported a barely healed cut that ran from his cheek to his chin. As he approached, Doc could see that the cut was clumsily stitched closed with what looked like regular fabric thread.
He walked up and stood about a foot from Doc, his lips a bloodless line, just staring at him with those cold, dead eyes, one hand on his hip, the other on the handle of his Bowie knife.
Doc unwittingly bowed his head. “Milo.”
“Doc.” Milo’s voice was low and even. “I thought we had an arrangement.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be late because you said—” Doc began, but Milo cut him off, his voice gaining volume.
“The arrangement—if you recall—was that you bring me this ‘supply guy’ so that I can speak with him. And for this service, I give you back your beloved fiancée and let the two of you ride off into the sunset together.” Milo stared silently for a brief moment, then continued. “So now, I look behind you and I can’t help but notice that there are no other people inside your pickup truck. Therefore, I must ask the following question: Where the FUCK is my guy?”
Doc finally found his voice, but it shook when he used it. “I can lead you to him, I swear to God. I will lead you there. I just… He changed the plan and I wasn’t going to be able to bring him in time, and I didn’t have a way to get in contact with you. I didn’t want to be late.” Doc took a breath and looked around, trying to see into the windows of the trucks. “Where’s Nicole?”
“Would you shut the fuck up about Nicole, for Chrissake?” Milo squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “First, I am not pleased. That being said, the deal is not necessarily off, if you can still get me what I need.” Milo jabbed a stiff index finger into Doc’s chest. “Even though you royally fucked me over and I should gut you where you stand.”
Doc nodded. “Okay.”
“I notice the truck is full. Are those supplies?”
“Yes.”
Milo regained his cold composure. “Are there more?”
Doc hesitated for a brief second, but he saw Milo’s fingers slowly wrapping around the handle of that Bowie knife, so he spoke up. “Yes. The guy is legit. He’s got supplies. Shitloads of supplies.”
Milo looked down his nose at Doc. “What type of supplies?”
“Everything. Food, water, medicine, weapons, radios. You name it.”
Milo appeared thoughtful and looked up at the sky. Doc noticed that it had all but stopped raining. The last few raindrops were falling in brief smatterings, but the brunt of the storm appeared to be passing, or at least pausing to gather its strength, as the summer storms often did.
“Okay.” Milo crossed his arms and Doc was just happy his hand was away from that Bowie knife. He’d seen the man use that thing and didn’t want any part of it. “Do you remember where the supplies are? Can you take us back there?”
“Well.” Doc was not sure how to break the information. “I can. But it won’t do you any good. The captain has to physically be there to open the door to the supply bunker.”
“The captain, huh?” Milo scoffed. “Well, I guess we need to get the captain, then, don’t we?”
Doc didn’t respond.
“Where is he?”
“Smithfield,” Doc said slowly. “It’s a little town up—”
“Oh, I know Smithfield.” Milo smiled. “Yeah. We’re great friends with Smithfield. Really great friends.”
* * *
Everyone in the Chevrolet Lumina stared out the windshield at the small city below them, wondering why Josh and Doc were not answering their radio. The wind was gone and the rain had all but died. Far to the south, a corner of the thick gray storm clouds folded back and the sun broke through, like it was fighting to beat back the clouds but was eventually overwrought and covered up again. It was close to midday.
“It’s a good distance from here to where you left them,” LaRouche observed. “You sure the radios can reach that far?”
Lee looked at the radio in his hand. “Yeah. The distance shouldn’t be a problem on these.”
“Maybe the storm’s interfering with the signal,” Miller suggested.
Harper shifted around in his seat. “We need to go back.”
“Uh-uh.” LaRouche shook his head vehemently. “You can’t go out during the day.”
Lee and the men from Camp Ryder looked confused. “I thought you didn’t go out at night.”
Now it was LaRouche’s turn to look confused. “You don’t go in the woods at night, and you don’t go in the city during the day.” He hiked an arm up on the passenger seat so he could twist around and look at the others. “Jesus Christ, guys. You don’t know that? How are you still alive?”
“You were out during the day,” Miller said, as though it were an accusation.
“Yeah.” LaRouche raised his voice. “Trying to get some fucking diesel for the hospital generator before it runs out.”
Lee raised a placating hand. “We’re not arguing here. Sergeant, can you explain to us what the difference between the city and the woods is—besides the obvious.”
LaRouche seemed indignant for a second, giving everyone a look that made it very clear that he didn’t like being called into question. “Yeah. You got ‘hordes’ and you got ‘packs.’ The city crazies tend to gather in one big horde. There doesn’t seem to be a single leader; they just all go where the others go. Mindless. Like cattle. The ones out in the woods tend to be in smaller packs, though they can still get pretty big. They seem to have one ‘pack leader’ that they follow, and they tend to be a little more clever.”
Lee remembered the horde that had attacked them at the Petersons’ house, and he remembered the Shovel Guy who had almost killed Angela. He’d seemed to be the leader of that group, and they were large, probably around eighty strong. Lee said as much to LaRouche.
The sergeant answered with a shrug and upraised hands. “I don’t know, Captain. I’m just telling you what I’ve seen. I’ve heard the same type of stories from a couple of others. Keep in mind I’m not a scientist. I don’t know how this shit works. That being said, these crazy people, they still have to eat, right? So what happens when these hordes in these cities have picked clean everything there is to eat in the city? I don’t think they’ll just sit around and wait to starve to death. I think they start… migrating, I guess.”
Lee didn’t know about LaRouche’s theory on migrating hordes, but the sergeant was at least correct that they didn’t have much information about the infected. Everything they knew was based on anecdotal evidence. There were no officials anymore to tell them what was normal and why. Strange shit was happening, and they just had to deal with it and worry about the reasons later when there was time.
“So.” Lee tapped his lips with the radio antenna. “Why is it more dangerous to go out during the day if you’re in the city? What difference does it make?”
“Again, I can’t tell you why, because I just don’t know.” LaRouche seemed to be losing patience. “All I can tell you is that the ones in the woods get way more active at night, and their senses are like an animal’s. They’ll sniff you out and I swear to God they can hear a squirrel fart from three hundred yards away.” He shook his head. “The ones in the
city are the exact opposite. They get lethargic or something at night and just stand there, hundreds of them, standing there in the moonlight. It’s creepy as fuck. But their senses aren’t as tuned as the infected in the woods. They rely more on their eyesight, I think. Like regular people. So we try to avoid them during the day when they’re moving around a lot and can see much better.”
Harper’s voice was quiet. “They’ve changed a lot since a month ago.”
The implication was obvious, and everyone knew exactly what Harper was really saying, because they had all just had the same thought. First the bacterium burrows through the brain. People get sick. Then they lose their minds. They don’t appear to have any will to survive, and they throw themselves in harm’s way. They are simply full of aggression toward everything around them. Then they form groups, and the aggression toward other infected subside. These groups turn into hordes that threaten survivors simply by their massive numbers. Then the infected begin to develop a pack instinct. They are on the brink of starvation, so they begin to hunt the easiest prey for a human to catch—another human. And they begin to feed.
A cycle of instinctive survival.
All in a little over a month.
If the infected were capable of evolving this far, what would life be like for the survivors in another month? In two? What about a year? The unspoken hope in everyone’s mind was that winter would come and wipe out a large portion of the infected, killing them with exposure, hypothermia, and starvation. But if they could think enough to hunt, if their survival instincts were reigniting inside their brains, what was to stop them from hibernating or developing some other method of coping with the cold?
“So what do we do about Doc and Josh?” Harper asked.
Lee breathed deeply, trying to rid his stomach of that leaden feeling. “I guess we have to wait until dark.”
