Aftermath

by D. J. Molles

  He swore in the darkness and tried to force an idea to spring forth in his mind. He pulled and yanked and contorted his wrists, but the layers and layers of tape they had tightly spun around them were too solid to stretch or break. His circulation was cut off, and his fingers and palms were beginning to feel cold and numb.

  One question blocked out any new ideas: If he escaped, what would Milo do to the Smithfield group? They had successfully detained him, showing Milo that they intended to do what he said, but would Milo hold them responsible if Lee managed to get away? And if he did, what would the punishment be? An even better question was whether or not Lee gave a shit about what happened to Shumate and his group at this point. Lee could not help deeply resenting Shumate and everyone in the hospital for the situation he now found himself in. He came in peace, trying to offer a deal, and he got imprisoned and turned over to the local warlord.

  Objectively, Lee recognized the situation that Shumate found himself in. As the leader, everyone was looking at him to keep them safe, not to make alliances with other groups of survivors. There was no doubt that Milo outgunned them. Standing up to him would almost certainly result in massive casualties and possibly complete destruction. Standing with Lee and disobeying Milo was a bad bet for Shumate at this point in time.

  Subjectively, Lee did not see the point in keeping the Smithfield group alive if it meant he was going to be dead. Of course, he didn’t know what Milo’s plans for him were, but he doubted they involved handshakes and friendship. He anticipated that Milo planned to get into his bunkers by any means necessary, which would include torturing him and torturing or killing others like Harper and Miller to get Lee to talk.

  So what do I do about it?

  Lee’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices outside. All three prisoners turned and faced the door. The voices grew louder as they drew closer and Lee could hear two men’s voices contending with a female’s. Just from the sound of the men’s voices, he knew their fight was lost. The woman’s voice was clear and demanding and carried with it a note of command.

  The door was unlocked and thrown open.

  Even the subdued light from outside made Lee squint.

  The voices continued their argument and Lee now realized the two men were LaRouche and Shumate. He didn’t recognize the female voice but saw the three figures in the doorway, Shumate and LaRouche trying to keep a pissed-off woman from barging into the room.

  “Get your fucking hands off of me!” She shook Shumate’s hand from her arm and pointed a finger in his face. “You touch me again, I swear to God I’m gonna kick your nuts into your mouth.”

  Shumate made a face that looked like steam might come out of his ears, but he only balled his fists at his sides and didn’t touch the woman anymore. On the other side of the woman, LaRouche held his hands up as though to surrender.

  “Just let her talk to him.” LaRouche put a staying hand on Shumate’s chest.

  The woman glared at the two men, then turned her attention to the three prisoners. She stood all of five feet and six inches, but she put her hands on her hips and glowered like she was in charge of the damn place. She wore only a pair of jeans and a white tank top and Lee immediately recognized the same corded, hard-work muscle he’d seen on Marie.

  “Which one of you was talking about my sister?” she demanded.

  Lee raised his head a bit. “You must be Julia.”

  She turned her attention on him and Lee thought for a second she might just hit him for the hell of it. But she approached him without hesitation and appeared to be looking over his injuries with a skeptical eye. When she spoke again, her voice was somewhat softer. “Is she still alive?”

  Lee nodded once.

  “How do you know her?”

  Lee looked to his left, where Harper and Miller were still leaning up against the wall. “She’s in a camp—the same one these guys are from. We left to get supplies and Marie asked me to see if I could make contact with you.” Lee turned an accusatory eye on Shumate. “She wanted me to make sure your group of survivors was okay and to leave them with communications equipment so the two groups could help each other. Obviously, Mr. Shumate here has a different idea.”

  Shumate bristled. “You know I don’t have a choice.”

  “We all have a choice,” Lee snapped.

  Julia turned back to Shumate and LaRouche. “You have to let them go.”

  LaRouche didn’t respond, but Shumate threw his hands up in the air. “Jesus H. Christ, woman! Are you insane?” He jabbed a finger at Lee. “Milo wants that guy, and if he don’t get him, we’re all fucked! Would you think about everyone else for a change?”

  That set Julia off. “Think? What about you? Have you thought about why Milo wants him so badly? Have you bothered to ask him? Don’t you think that’s something we should know about before we just kowtow to every whim Milo comes up with? Or maybe you’re just too fucking dickless!”

  Shumate fumed and growled something unintelligible, but he turned his gaze on Lee. “Why does Milo want you?”

  Lee thought for a long moment whether or not he should spill the truth to Shumate. Given the current situation, Lee didn’t think it could make things any worse.

  Shumate took his silence as a refusal to speak. “You see? He ain’t gonna say shit!”

  Lee laid it all out, quickly and concisely. “I have access to supplies. Things people need. The US government gave me these caches so that I could help restore order to the region.” He tossed his head toward the two men from Camp Ryder. “They can attest to that. I’ve been helping their group, and we were on the way back with the supplies when we stopped in here.”

  Shumate stared at him dubiously, then looked at Harper and Miller.

  Both men nodded.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Shumate shook his head. “What a crock of shit.”

  Lee felt frustrated laughter bubbling up in his chest. “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Prove it,” Shumate challenged.

  “Prove it?” A tiny chuckle escaped Lee’s throat. “Have you fucking looked in my backpack? Have you seen anyone else carrying live grenades, 40-mike-mikes, and claymores? Anyone else got a bunch of brand new long-range radios in their pack?” Lee looked down at his clothing. “Even my goddamn clothes are brand-fucking-new! Everything we have is fresh from the supply cache!”

  Shumate looked at the uniform Lee wore, then rubbed his face. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  This time Harper spoke up. “There’s a pickup truck full of supplies just outside the barricade on Brightleaf Boulevard. We left it there because we couldn’t get it past the barricade. You can go and see for yourself. All those supplies came from Captain Harden’s bunker.”

  “Now it’s a fucking ‘bunker,’ ” Shumate muttered.

  Julia stepped toward him. “You’ve got to let them go!”

  LaRouche seemed to side with them. “It explains why Milo wants him so badly.”

  “He can help you!” Harper said urgently.

  Lee cleared his throat. “Sheriff, you at least need to let these other two men go.”

  A brief moment of silence before Harper objected. “Captain…”

  Lee spoke more forcefully. “You’ve got no reason to keep them here. And those supplies need to get back to the other camp. The people there are starving. They need help. If you don’t let these men leave, you’re killing them just as surely as if you shot them yourself.”

  Shumate’s eyebrow twitched up. “You know what doesn’t make sense? Who the fuck leaves a pickup truck full of supplies just lying out in the open, unguarded?”

  “We left two men there,” Harper explained. “Their names are Doc and Josh.”

  At the mention of the names, Shumate and LaRouche looked at each other with a dreadful silence that made Lee feel rubbery. Shumate suddenly avoided eye contact. “By the way, Milo called me on the radio. He wanted me to tell you that he has a guy named Doc, a friend of yours, and he
’s going to execute him if you aren’t here when he arrives.”

  Lee wanted to feel what should have been shock, sucking the wind out of him, but instead all he felt was a sinking, wretched disappointment, a positive knowing, a confirmation of dreadful things you already knew but didn’t want to admit to yourself. That was why Doc hadn’t answered the radio. Milo had found them. And he hadn’t mentioned Josh, which meant he was probably dead or dying. And the pickup truck, full of supplies they had risked their lives and killed to get, was all gone, sucked up into a tornado named Milo.

  And inside of Lee, he didn’t know whether the fire was so hot it felt cold or whether he just wasn’t feeling anything at all. He didn’t know whether to be crushed with the disappointment or explode with rage. The two equal and opposite forces pressed at each other and sandwiched Lee in the middle so that he just stood there, staring at the red emergency lights above the door and wondering why ever in the fuck did he take this job? Was the destruction of humanity the will of God and Lee was just a modern-day Jacob, wrestling stubbornly and fruitlessly with an angel over the wreckage of America?

  Maybe Father Jim would have an answer for him.

  Lee found himself looking at Shumate again, and when he spoke he heard his voice like he had water in his ears. “Let Harper and Miller leave. You’ve got no business with them. You’ve got me. You’ve got what Milo wants. Unless you’re going to stand and fight with me, then let them go, and leave me the fuck alone.”

  Shumate seemed unsure, an expression that crossed his face often and seemed to fall into place there like a wheel finding a well-worn rut. He looked at LaRouche, who was staring at him intensely.

  “I can take them,” LaRouche said. “Milo doesn’t know about them, so he can’t be mad.”

  Julia stepped forward. “You have to let them go. My sister’s there. We can help each other.”

  Shumate finally nodded. He pointed a finger at LaRouche. “But Milo’s gonna show up any minute. You need to move them out before he gets here.”

  LaRouche didn’t waste any time. He produced a big knife from his vest and instructed Harper and Miller to turn around. The two of them looked stunned, but they didn’t argue. Lee didn’t want them to argue. He wanted them to be gone. The less they said the better.

  LaRouche cut through the duct tape binding their hands together. The two of them looked at Lee, rubbing the stickiness off their wrists. When they seemed like they were trying to find something to say, Lee just shook his head. “Go. I can take care of myself.” Lee looked at Shumate. “Let them take my pack, but keep that black box you got out of my pocket. I’m just going to assume Milo knows about it anyway.”

  Shumate seemed to consider this for a moment while LaRouche ushered them out of the door. Eventually, he nodded. Perhaps the deputy figured that if he was trusting Lee this far, and if Julia and LaRouche thought he was being truthful, he may as well go with it. Lee also assumed that Shumate might be trying to remedy as much of the relationship between him and Camp Ryder as possible, in hopes of still getting his hands on some diesel fuel.

  Everyone had their motives.

  Julia turned to him before she walked out. “Thank you.”

  Lee didn’t respond, and she left the room.

  Shumate was the last one. Before he closed the door, he stopped and looked at Lee. “I’m sorry about all this.”

  Lee thought about choice words, but in the end only stared at Shumate, his eyes full of hatred. When Lee once again had nothing to say, the deputy sheriff looked down with that familiar look of shame and uncertainty and closed the door, plunging Lee back into the dim red darkness.

  CHAPTER 17

  Breaking Points

  Harper and Miller followed LaRouche as he marched back down the hall toward where they had first come into the hospital. Both men walked along with their hands clasped together as though they were still bound, their gaits no longer confident but subdued. To their right, the woman that was apparently Marie’s sister rushed past them and fell in step with the sergeant.

  “How far are you taking them?” she asked.

  LaRouche looked at her, as if he already knew where this was going. “You’ve got too many people here relying on you.”

  “I don’t want to be here anymore.” She lowered her voice. “Shumate is going to get us all killed. I know he thinks he’s saving us, but you know as well as I do what happens with people like Milo. They keep taking and taking until there’s nothing left to give, but by then we won’t have anything left to fight him with.”

  LaRouche stopped and spun on her. “You want to fight Milo? I’m with you on that. But running off to another camp is not the way to do it. The people here need you, Julia. And if you truly are serious about fighting and not just trying to get away from Shumate, then you’ll stay here. I think your sister has some pull in the other camp, but she’ll have no basis to send help if you’re there with her.”

  Julia considered this. “Leave me one of the radios from the captain’s backpack, then.”

  LaRouche regarded Harper as though he maybe should ask them permission. But he didn’t. He just nodded. “Fine.”

  They walked to the nurses’ station where Javier and the man with the Cajun accent stood. They’d emptied the contents of Lee’s backpack onto the counter and were poking through everything, handling the explosives with caution, well aware of what they were.

  LaRouche spoke with a bite of anger. “Pack that shit back up.”

  Javier pointed to the array of gear. “He’s got fuckin’ grenades, man! We could really use those!”

  LaRouche took a warning tone. “Pack it up, Javier.”

  Javier shrugged and began placing the items gingerly into the backpack. “Alright, alright. I’m just saying… we could have used them.”

  The Cajun spoke up. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “I’m taking these gentlemen back to their camp.”

  “And what about the other guy?”

  LaRouche shook his head. “Milo wants him. And Shumate plans to give him up.”

  The Cajun snorted and spat. “Fucking weasel.”

  Harper watched the exchange in silence. It appeared to him that Shumate was losing control here at Smithfield. As well intended as his actions were, people did not want to labor under the threat of violence from Milo. Harper knew if he were in their position, he would feel that it would be better to fight Milo and get it over with than to wait until all their strength had been bled dry.

  Yes, Shumate was losing control of this group.

  But LaRouche was gaining every inch of it that slipped out of the deputy’s fingers. LaRouche might not view the other survivors as equal—likely he had been part of the detachment that was meant to protect them until evacuations could be made—and he probably viewed them as pitiful civilians. But those civilians looked to him for answers, the same way Harper found himself looking to Captain Harden.

  It was strange for Harper, thinking so callously of his own family. But Milo was family by blood only. Their relationship had been strained ever since childhood and it had not improved with age, as Harper once believed it would. Instead, with the end of everything, Harper found himself thinking of the man named Milo less as his brother, and more as a man that was responsible for many of the bad things that surrounded Harper’s life.

  When the pack was full again, with the exception of one long-range radio, LaRouche handed it to Harper. He noticed that someone—probably Javier—had rethreaded the straps that they’d cut. He swung into it, shocked at the weight of it. Captain Harden had made the pack look like it weighed no more than twenty pounds or so, but it was at least twice that.

  Harper felt not only the physical weight but the figurative weight of the burden of Camp Ryder’s survival being passed over to him. Only Harper was not a soldier. He did not know what to do in these situations. And now he would be returning empty-handed once again, without the rifles and ammunition and food and medical supplies that would have brought Camp Ryd
er back from the brink.

  Harper thought he might break down right there.

  But then Miller was next to him, patting him on the back. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Bill.”

  LaRouche led them forward. They exited through that same door that led to the stairwell, then up two flights of stairs to the last landing. LaRouche took the stairs quickly, and when he opened the door at the top, he moved through with urgency, his eyes scanning the horizon. Harper assumed he was looking for signs of Milo’s arrival to gauge how much time they really had.

  They moved swiftly to the car and piled in, Harper sitting up front this time, where he had to move Captain Harden’s rifle out of the way. As he sat, he looked at the rifle and all of the switches, buttons, and levers. It reminded him somehow that he was not up to the task, that he could not fill the shoes of the man who had come before him.

  But he would try, dammit.

  LaRouche cranked the old Chevrolet and it started faithfully.

  The tires on the car chirped slightly as he rushed the vehicle down the several levels of the parking garage to the bottom. As they sped out from underneath the shadow of the garage, they were all silent and focused, eyes trained as far out as they could see, dreading a glimpse of Milo’s convoy rolling up to the hospital. None of them wanted to think about what Milo would do to them or the survivors inside the hospital if he caught LaRouche smuggling them out.

  Up ahead, Harper saw the skeletal remnants of the decontamination domes and the checkpoint they had passed through on the way in. LaRouche slowed down just enough to navigate these safely, but then sped back up when he hit the main drag. He took side streets that Harper didn’t recognize from their trip in. They made a right on a two-lane street, the tilted sign declaring it North Street. Harper watched ransacked houses on his left, a wide-open cemetery to his right. Among the tombstones were bodies, lying as though they had found a suitable place to rest and were now awaiting burial.

  They made a left-hand turn on Third Street and it was more houses to either side, a mish-mash of styles, old and new and recently renovated. The hazards were light on this road and Harper got the impression LaRouche knew which streets were clear for quick traveling and which were not. They approached the intersection of a main thoroughfare and it was at that moment that an old habit saved their lives.