Aftermath

by D. J. Molles

  A normal man forfeits where a warrior fights.

  The psychological evaluation for candidates of Project Hometown placed heavy focus on that very concept. They recognized that there would be no leadership, that the entire command structure would be eliminated, that the coordinators would be operating in a vacuum. So they set out to find the warriors, the ones who just kept fighting because there was a fight to be fought. The ones who wouldn’t ever forfeit. The ones who were too fucking stubborn to know when they’d been defeated. Because it was not the measure of a warrior whether his plan went off without a hitch, but how he reacted when that plan inevitably failed. Because the real plan for victory wasn’t what you put down on paper; it was the heart of the man you put in the fight.

  So when consciousness suddenly returned to Lee’s mind, he fought. Through the agonizing pain in his left arm, through the throbbing in his freshly broken tailbone, through the inability to catch a full breath through his three cracked ribs, he found himself batting away LaRouche’s hands as though the sergeant were an infected, and then punched him square in the face.

  “Fuck!” LaRouche bent backward, warding off Lee’s next blow and covering his broken nose with his other hand. Lee recovered his senses, realizing he was not being attacked, and stopped trying to beat the snot out of LaRouche. “Fuckin’ A, Captain…”

  Lee tried to say his name, but it came out jumbled. “Laharoof?”

  And then he rolled onto his hands and knees and discovered all his new injuries as each movement brought out the pain in different places. They all jostled for attention and became just a white noise of pain, almost making it easier to ignore.

  “You’re hurt; you need to stay down.” It was Julia speaking now.

  “No…” Lee forced one foot to the ground, and then lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Fi-fine… I’m fine.”

  The radio was still going off in his back pocket. It was a small miracle that it had even survived the fall. Lee tried to grab it and found his left hand somewhat uncooperative, so he tried his right hand and succeeded, though twisting his torso sent waves of sharp pain through his ribs. Harper spoke frantically on the radio, trying to reach him.

  Lee keyed up. “Lee here.” He blinked rapidly to clear spots from his vision as unconsciousness tried to mount a comeback. Above them, the elevator shaft rose up to a small square of light. That was the opening Lee had just jumped from. Crowded around that opening, the dark shapes of the infected were screaming at them in frustration, but they did not make the jump themselves. “Harper, where are you?”

  “Where the fuck are you?” came the panicked reply. “I’ve been trying to… Fuck! Forget it!” Harper took an audible breath. In the background, a roaring engine but no gunfire. “We got plenty of attention when we rolled up to the hospital. We turned and ran, and almost all of them followed. But we lost ’em, so we’re swinging back around. Where are you?”

  Lee managed to pull intelligent thought from the fog hanging around his brain. “We’re gonna be on the backside of the hospital. The north side. But listen…” Lee turned and looked into the maintenance tunnel, lit only by the glow of a few flashlights interspersed throughout the group. It illuminated enough of them for Lee to make a quick head count. “Shit… I got about thirty survivors. All you got is the pickup.”

  “Well, God’s on our side, brother!”

  Lee looked at the radio, not comprehending. “Yeah, that’s nice, Harper. How are we gonna move these people?”

  “You remember Father Jim?”

  Hope swept the fog right out of his mind. He found himself smiling tentatively. “Yeah. What about him?”

  “I’ll explain later. We’re coming back up on the hospital, near those big white tents. Where are you?”

  “I’m gonna hand you to Sergeant LaRouche so he can guide you in.” Lee shoved the radio into LaRouche’s hands.

  Still stifling blood flow from his nose, LaRouche took the radio and spoke with urgency. “When you get inside the barricade, go to the left of the parking garage, all the way around to the back of the hospital. You’ll see a bunch of utility boxes and a brown door marked MAINTENANCE. We’re right on the other side of that door. Just tell us when you’re here and we’ll make a run for it.”

  “Okay, just hang on for a second.”

  Lee pointed everyone forward. “Get up on that exit, folks!”

  The group turned obediently and, in tense silence, moved to the door. The maintenance tunnel was not long, but it was tight, so two people could barely walk abreast of each other. Both sides were crammed with panels and power boxes and other things Lee couldn’t even name. Over their heads ran a snakelike jumble of pipes and cables. As the group moved down the tunnel, Lee stooped to grab the M249 off the ground and it felt like every muscle and joint in his body was broken.

  As they reached the door, LaRouche called out from behind them all. “Don’t open the door yet. Wait for our ride to get here.”

  Lee regarded the sergeant’s broken nose with a remorseful look. “Sorry about your nose.”

  LaRouche waved him off. “Five-second rule. No worries.”

  Lee almost smiled, remembering life in the barracks where pranks were common and often involved rudely waking someone from sleep. If you woke someone up and he beat your ass, you couldn’t complain about it, because the rule stated that he wasn’t responsible for anything he did within five seconds of waking up.

  Lee’s mind turned back to the situation at hand and he found himself wondering what the hell Harper and Father Jim had managed to bring that would help them get all the survivors out. And where had Father Jim even come from? Harper had gone back to Camp Ryder. Had Father Jim beat them there? And then Lee thought, Harper didn’t even have time to get back to Camp Ryder…

  Harper’s voice sparked with static. “Okay. We see the door. We’re outside. We got company, so let’s haul ass.”

  “Move!” Lee shouted to the group.

  The door flew open. Coming from the dark tunnel, even the waning daylight, diffused by cloud cover, seemed blinding. Lee’s excitement and hope were replaced by dread as he heard the sound the survivors made as they broke out of the door and found themselves in daylight. All heads seemed to instantly look to their right and there was screaming and pointing and everyone started running much faster.

  Spurred on, Lee tried to move through the crowd but found his tailbone and left leg sending electric shocks of pain up his spine with each step. His teeth were set in a rictus grin and he could feel the sweat going cold on his brow. He broke from the tunnel and spun to the right.

  About a hundred yards out from them, a group of about twenty infected had taken notice of them and were coming in fast. Lee took a knee, almost passing out with the agony of the movement, but forced himself to steady his aim. One quick pull—five rounds downrange—and two creatures fell. Another pull, another target down. But they were fanning out, making it difficult for Lee’s bursts to catch more than one target at a time, as though they knew that bunching together made them more vulnerable to machine-gun fire.

  They can’t think, Lee had to remind himself. The logical parts of their brains were gone, eaten through to nothing. Anything that looked like reasoning was either a coincidence or some random firing of left-over synapses.

  Right?

  He kept firing, picking his targets as they drew closer and closer and he kept pulling that trigger every time the sights lined up. Someone was yelling his name from behind him when finally the M249 ran out of ammunition and became a twenty-pound paperweight. Lee decided to drop the gun in the very spot that it ran dry.

  There were still about ten infected running for him.

  Maybe less, maybe more.

  Things were getting a bit hazy now.

  He turned and noticed the world having to take a second to catch up with him. When he had focused and was hobbling as fast as his damaged body could handle, the vision of the road cleared and he saw the most unlikely of vehicles sitting in the
roadway, with Harper hanging out of the open door and waving at him like a madman.

  Somewhere, they had picked up an activity bus.

  It was a big white machine, not quite the size of the huge yellow school buses, but with plenty of room for all of the survivors if they crammed in tight. On the side of it, underneath the bank of windows, Lee could read in big blue letters, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, and he almost laughed at the strange coincidence of it all. Where the hell did they get that thing?

  Idling in front of the church bus was the Dodge Ram 2500, its bed still packed full of supplies, and it didn’t look like a single package or pail had been touched. In the driver’s seat of the pickup truck, Miller looked beside himself with the desire to leave the area and seemed like he might peel out at any second.

  Lee reached the church bus and Harper and LaRouche hauled him in even as it started rolling. One of the infected tried to jump at the front of the bus but only smashed its head against the windshield, leaving a bloody mark and a wide crack in the glass before tumbling to the side and becoming a small speed bump.

  “You all right, Captain?” LaRouche yelled.

  Lee found himself leaning against the driver’s seat, his M4 squashed uncomfortably against his back, his legs dangling into the small steps down to the bus doors. He craned his neck to see who was driving the bus and discovered Father Jim looking down on him with a genuine smile.

  Lee expected some platitude or scripture about the Lord rescuing them, but the priest just nodded knowingly. He must have seen the look in Lee’s eyes, the disbelief that somehow Father Jim had been at the right place at the right time with just the right equipment to save their asses, and so Father Jim said nothing. Instead, he patted Lee on the shoulder and steered the bus in a wide left-hand turn, banking around the northeastern side of the hospital as a few infected stragglers chased madly after them.

  “Are you okay?” LaRouche repeated, kneeling down so they were on eye level with each other.

  Lee tried to take a deep breath, felt the pain spike through his ribs, but managed to control the wince and give a thumbs-up. “All good here, Sergeant.”

  The bus listed slightly as they cornered, reaching Brightleaf Boulevard again and turning south toward Camp Ryder. Toward safety. Lee felt an immense relief like a warm blanket being pulled over his drowsy body. Out to the right of the bus, the parking lot of the Johnston Memorial Hospital stretched, empty save for a few bodies and a few cars. The enormous horde that had occupied it so recently had disappeared, running off into Smithfield to chase Harper in a vehicle they would never catch. To the left of the main hospital wing, Lee could see the parking garage and the still-smoking ruins of the pickup truck that LaRouche and Harper and Miller had unintentionally lit on fire. Behind the smoldering ruins was the hulk of the big green Humvee, and it looked like it was smashed into the wall of the hospital, right where the door had been.

  Staring at the scene, Lee couldn’t help but laugh, though the pain it brought quickly stifled it. That must have been what Milo and his men were struggling with in the stairwell. To keep them from being attacked while they stole back their pickup full of supplies, LaRouche, Harper, and Miller had wedged the Humvee against the door so no one could get out.

  Lee had to admit that was clever thinking.

  Too bad in a way, though.

  It seemed like a waste to leave the Humvee there.

  Lee was about to close his eyes and relax for a brief moment when movement from the rooftop of the hospital caught his eye. He sat up, gritting his teeth, his eyes narrowing. LaRouche noticed the intense focus and spun to look out the window.

  “What? What do you see?”

  Lee pointed to the top of the building. “Is that…”

  A dark figure was sprinting along the rooftop. The weird, loping gait was a dead giveaway to anyone who knew him, and LaRouche almost immediately responded. “Fuck! That’s Milo!”

  “What?” Harper snapped his head around. “How the hell did he get out alive?”

  LaRouche jabbed a finger out toward the hospital. “He must have escaped to the roof somehow.”

  It was clear what Milo’s objective was. The top level of the garage was only a short drop from the roof of the hospital, and without a doubt he was heading for that. He was making a run for the Humvee.

  CHAPTER 24

  The River

  Lee pulled himself upright, looking through the windshield at the pickup truck driving just ahead of them. “Tell Miller to stop.”

  “What?” LaRouche put a hand to his chest. “We can’t stop! You’re injured! You need to—”

  “Tell him to stop!” Lee shouted, causing both LaRouche and Father Jim to jump.

  The sergeant must have heard something in Lee’s voice that told him this was not the time to argue. He put the radio to his mouth. “Miller, this is Sergeant LaRouche. Stop right there. We’re going to stop.”

  The response was instant and high-pitched. “We can’t stop now!”

  Lee snatched the radio out of LaRouche’s hands. “Fucking stop the truck, Miller! Milo’s getting away! He’s got my fuckin’ GPS!”

  Realization dawned on the faces around Lee. Without the GPS, their safety, their security, the presence of food and ammunition and medical supplies would be limited once again. They all seemed to realize how much they had believed in Lee, that he could rescue them, that he could rebuild them. But without the resources, Lee was just a good soldier. Someone you’d like to have in a fight but not much else.

  Ahead of them, Miller applied the brakes sharply.

  The bus lurched as Father Jim pulled to a stop to avoid slamming into the pickup truck.

  Lee was off the bus before anyone could stop him, hobbling toward the Dodge Ram, trying to keep the pressure off his left leg. Stiffly, he pulled his M4 off of his back as he approached the driver’s door and yanked it open.

  “Scoot over,” he barked.

  Miller threw the truck in park and jumped over into the passenger seat.

  “Hold this.” Lee shoved his M4 into Miller’s hands and struggled for a moment to get himself into the driver’s seat with much grunting and swearing and rapid, shallow breathing that hissed through his clenched teeth. Through the open door, they could hear the sound of tires squealing on pavement and when they looked up, they could just see the rounded green hump of the Humvee disappearing down into the parking garage, its long antenna waving good-bye to them.

  Lee put the truck in drive, then seemed to realize something. He turned and faced Miller. “If you wanna get out, now’s the time to do it.”

  Miller didn’t hesitate. “You know I’m with you, Captain.”

  Lee slammed on the accelerator. The engine roared and the vehicle rose up off its shocks, tearing down Brightleaf Boulevard. They watched the Humvee fly out of the darkness of the parking garage, clipping a cement barrier as it hauled toward the checkpoint and the street just beyond.

  Lee found his grip on the steering wheel tenuous and had to hold it with both hands, just to make sure it didn’t slip. On the good side, his hand was regaining some range of movement. The speedometer swelled up to sixty-five miles per hour before he had to slam on the brakes to make the right turn onto North Street. Just ahead, the Humvee emerged from the checkpoint onto North Street about two blocks ahead of them.

  It seemed that Milo knew he was being pursued.

  More than that, it looked like he was trying pretty damned hard to get away.

  Not so brave now, without his pack of goons.

  “Tell the bus not to follow us.” Lee’s voice was loud and strained. “Tell them to go straight back to Camp Ryder. We’ll meet up with them there once we deal with Milo.”

  Miller seemed to realize what sticking with the captain entailed. “Shit. Okay.” He keyed the mic. “Miller to anyone on the bus. Don’t follow us. Captain Harden says go straight back to Camp Ryder. We will meet you there.”

  There was hesitation in LaRouche’s response. “I read you. Be
careful.”

  From the tone of his voice, Lee could tell that LaRouche didn’t want to leave the fight behind him, but it was too late now. He couldn’t follow Lee into battle and bring all the innocent civilians with him. Lee knew from watching LaRouche that he wasn’t one to back down from a fight. But sometimes one had to swallow that down and do what was right for other people.

  Miller’s voice broke through his reverie. “You okay, Captain? You look pretty banged up.”

  Banged up?

  He’d been blown up, lost a tooth, shot through the shoulder, and had taken a three-story fall with a rope wrapped around his wrist that kept him from dying but ripped nearly every ligament in his left arm. He could barely breathe through his cracked ribs, barely walk with his left leg, and barely sit with his busted tailbone.

  Yeah. Maybe he was a little banged up.

  “I’m still breathing,” Lee said stubbornly, perhaps more to convince himself than Miller. He recalled instructors in his survival course taking a half gallon of corn syrup with red dye in it and spilling it out on a patch of pavement. They had pointed to the big puddle and said, Take a good look at that, gentlemen. Remember the size of that puddle. That’s how much blood the average male can lose before he’s in danger of dying. If you feel like dying before you see that much blood on the ground, you’re just being weak.

  Don’t be weak.

  They were gaining on Milo when the Humvee hit the brakes hard and laid rubber trying to make the left turn from North Street onto Second Street, nearly losing control and planting the big green vehicle in the living room of a house.