by D. J. Molles
LaRouche stopped in front of the group and held up a hand. “Listen up for a second.”
The sound of quiet conversation and the clank of cookware ceased and the eyes of the team went to LaRouche, who did not look happy.
LaRouche looked back at them. “At this point, you all know I don’t beat around the bush, so I’ll just spit it out. It’s been two days since we’ve had any radio contact with Camp Ryder. We have no idea what the problem is. Could be something as simple as a malfunction with one of our repeaters…” he cleared his throat. “…Or it could be that something very serious has happened at Camp Ryder that is preventing them from responding to us.
“I’ve considered the options, and my decision remains the same as it has always been. We were given a mission, and we’re going to complete it. We’re not turning back. We’re not splitting up the team to send anyone back. I know that a few of you have wives and children back at Camp Ryder. I also know the threat we’re facing ahead of us. If we encounter The Followers, I’m gonna need every gun I can get. Not to mention the importance of the mission.”
He found the faces of Joel, Nick, and Dorian, and he looked directly at them when he spoke. “If you choose to leave, I won’t stop you. But I won’t help you either. You’ll go with what you have on you. You won’t get any extra food or water or ammunition. I can’t loan you a vehicle, or send anybody with you to watch your back. I’m not doing this to be a dick, but like I said, I still have a mission, and I intend to complete it no matter what.”
Of the three men, Nick seemed to be the most perturbed. He stood his tall frame up, raised one of his long, thin arms in question. He was a tall man, in his thirties. He had a skeletal face and an awkward gangly-ness to his stretched-out frame. His deep-set eyes were close together, and a thin, blue vein bulged noticeably under his left socket, so that it seemed no matter what his mood, he appeared to be intensely angry about something. He stood there, his shoulders cinched in a permanent shrug. “We can’t make it back to Camp Ryder by ourselves. It’d be fucking suicide.”
“Yes, it would,” LaRouche nodded.
“Well, you’re not giving us much of a choice, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” LaRouche said. “But that’s the situation. If we don’t make it to the bridges, if we get wiped out by some jack-fuck religious fanatics before we can do what we came here to do, then we’re talking about annihilation. Everything on south of us gets wiped out.” LaRouche shrugged. “So, no, I’m not giving you much of choice. Because I don’t have much of a choice to give.”
He shook his head and turned away from them. “I’ll take first watch.”
***
He found a rusted old ladder on the outside of the building, leading up to the roof. With a bottle of water and a pop-top can of ravioli, LaRouche climbed to his post just as the last shade of gray collapsed from the sky and left complete and utter blackness.
He looked back and forth across the sky but saw no sign of moon or stars. Somewhere above him was a thick cloud cover, and the wind buffeted against him. Perhaps he wasn’t doing anyone any favors by taking the first watch—it seemed like there might be a late-night storm coming through, just in time to soak the other two watchmen.
He climbed up on a dusty air conditioning unit, scared away something that hissed and scuttled loudly across the rooftop, and he nearly fell off in surprise. When he had recovered his heart, he flicked on a flashlight for a brief moment, scanning the top of the roof. There was nothing to see.
“Fucking rat,” LaRouche felt a shiver work down him.
He had settled into position on the top of the air conditioner. He turned off the flashlight and scanned the perimeter of the property, though his eyes were still light-dazzled and he couldn’t see much. He closed his eyes and listened, but there was nothing but the wind rattling through leaves, and the creaking of massive timbers in the forest behind him.
He removed the wad of chaw from his cheek, but didn’t throw it out. He wiped the dust from a section of the aluminum box and set the moist brown ball there. Then he popped the top on his canned ravioli and considered that he had once thought canned pasta was disgusting. Now it was the most flavorful thing he’d had in months.
He ate the ravioli with his fingers. When he was done, he licked the sauce off and wiped them on his pants. He took a long gulp of water. Put his tobacco back in. He situated himself more comfortably and draped his arms over the cold metal of his rifle, shrugging his shoulders against the wind.
His three hours of watch dragged on mercilessly.
The rain didn’t come for him, but the rat did. It scurried around the edges of the roof, always disappearing before LaRouche could turn his flashlight on. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he caught the bastard in the light. Shooting it would make too much noise, and it would be far too nimble to stomp to death. But at least it occupied him until the next watchman clambered up the ladder to relieve him.
It was Joel. Even in the darkness, LaRouche could tell it was him. His pale skin seemed to glow, and his white-blond hair stood out in a round puff on top of his head. LaRouche had always thought “Q-tip” would make a good nickname for him.
LaRouche nodded to Joel and stood from his spot on the air conditioning unit. “You taking next watch?”
Joel nodded.
LaRouche stood facing the man, waiting for something. Either for Joel to speak, or himself to come up with some piece of wisdom to offer. But he had nothing. And apparently neither did Joel. LaRouche took a step forward, put his hand up on the other man’s shoulder.
“Listen…” he began.
“I’m staying,” Joel said quietly.
LaRouche looked down. Closed his mouth.
“I’m scared, man.” Joel’s voice wavered slightly when he spoke, though in the darkness LaRouche couldn’t make out his expression. “I’m scared for my wife. I’m scared for what might be happening. But you know what?”
LaRouche looked at the man. “What?”
“I’m getting used to it.” He took a breath. “There’s just…there’s just no getting away from it. There’s always something new to worry about. And if there’s something wrong at Camp Ryder, you know…what the hell are we gonna do about it?”
LaRouche wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Joel was crying.
“I mean, it’s not like there’s anyone out there taking hostages. Either nothing has happened at Camp Ryder—which I hope to God is the case—or something has. And we’re already too goddamned late. And if we’re already too late, then...then there’s no point in going back.”
A miserable noise escaped the man. “Jesus…is it wrong that I can think that way? It’s my wife I’m talking about.”
LaRouche squeezed the man’s shoulder. “Joel. We don’t know that anything has even happened.”
“Why can’t we reach them?”
“When there are multiple theories, the simplest one is usually true.”
“What?”
“What’s simpler to believe?” LaRouche faced the man and spoke with a confidence that he had to pull up from a shallow and fast-dwindling well. “That someone or something has somehow overrun all of Camp Ryder, and that no one remains to answer our radio calls—including no one at any of the outposts? Or that there’s a problem with our radios?”
There was a long moment of silence between them.
Joel eventually sniffed loudly and LaRouche could see him nod his head in the gloom. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
LaRouche gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “It’s gonna be alright, man.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
LaRouche made his way down the ladder again, growing more and more tired with each passing rung. The ladder left little oxidized particles of metal behind on his hands and made them gritty and smell like blood. Inside the warehouse again, the light of a single wind-up flashlight cast a weak glow, barely illuminating the forms of his eleven sleeping teammates.
He had already laid out his bedroll so that he simply moved quietly to his spot, lay down, pulled the blanket up over his chest and was asleep before he knew it.
It seemed he had only just closed his eyes when he opened them again and found the warehouse illuminated by great swaths of yellow morning light. His breath plumed in the air and he realized it was the clank and rustle of people gathering their things that had awaken him.
He leaned up, found Jim folding up his bedroll, his eyes puffy and red, his hair a matted mess, face creased deeply by hard sleep. Jim regarded him warily.
“Jesus,” LaRouche threw his blanket off. “When were you gonna wake me?”
“You’re usually up by now,” Jim explained. “Figured if you weren’t waking up with this racket, you probably needed the sleep.” Jim looked around briefly and he lowered his voice. “Listen…I haven’t seen Nick this morning.”
LaRouche stood up, rubbing his face and his eyes and looking around quickly to confirm Jim’s claim. “Shit. Did he have a watch last night?”
“No. Wilson’s up there now.”
A voice mumbled behind them: “He left.”
LaRouche spun and found Joel, pulling his pack up onto one shoulder. In the light, strain showed on Joel’s features. The definition of “careworn.”
“He left?” LaRouche demanded.
“At first light.” Joel avoided eye contact. “Didn’t say nothin’ to nobody. Just grabbed his shit and left out. I just happened to wake up as he was leaving.”
LaRouche bore his teeth again, an expression that was becoming familiar to his team. He raked all ten fingers through his hair. He swore once, quietly. Then again, with more volume.
“Hey, Sarge!”
LaRouche turned and found Wilson stalking into the warehouse from outside.
LaRouche raised his eyebrows in question. “Did you know Nick left?”
“Nick left?”
“I guess you didn’t.”
Wilson reached him and looked around conspiratorially. “I think we got another problem.”
LaRouche snatched his rifle up from beside his bedroll. “Of course we do. What is it?”
Wilson turned on his heels and began walking briskly outside, this time with LaRouche in tow. Through the dingy abandoned offices, with their wet carpets and torn walls and vines creeping in through the windows, Wilson led him to the large open panel of missing glass that had been their entry and exit. There he pointed east.
At first LaRouche thought it was a storm cloud, dark and ominous, looming towards them from the eastern horizon, seeming to be silhouetted by the rising sun that hove through the dark mass in dazzling ribbons. But it was too narrow. And LaRouche could see it boiling, he could see it rising angrily. Far enough that he couldn’t smell it yet, but close enough to see the billows.
A black column of smoke.
“Get everybody mounted up,” LaRouche said. “We’re moving in five.”
CHAPTER 5: HEAD CHECK
Lee stared at colors.
Golden brown, like the sun on sand.
Like a sand dune that stretches up, up, up, and overtakes every shred of blue sky.
But it didn’t smell like dust, or the shit-reek of oil fields, or the smell of open sewers in a third world country. It smelled like musty carpet. Mildew. Wet dog. A distinct “inside” smell. The smell of something lived in long enough to soak up all the smells of human habitation, but since abandoned.
There was pain.
Feverish, aching pain that soaked his whole body. Throbbing pain in his ankle that bulged at the joint, slow and deliberate. Spiking pain in his head that jacked through the seams of his skull to the beat of his own pulse.
Lee moved his head, saw that the sand dune was a wall, painted that golden sandy color, made bright by the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He had no clear thought upon waking, but instead…panic. Confusion and disorientation as his mind tried to match his whereabouts to some place he knew, some place from his memory. But what he saw was unfamiliar to him, and his memories were shattered into bits and pieces.
He was cold. Shivering actually. But part of him was warm, near his legs.
He looked down along the line of his body.
He lay on his side, facing the wall. His hands were tucked tightly into his chest and clutched in his red right hand was a blood-spattered KABAR, the wood handle sticking to his fingers, his fingers sticking to each other. A brown and tan dog was curled at his legs and stirred when he moved, raising its lupine face and regarding him with golden eyes and perked, pointed ears.
Beyond the dog at his feet, he could see a linoleum entryway. Then a door hanging open, and outside, the world. Bright and cold.
Lee sat up sharply, ignoring the pain it caused. The sight of the door standing open like that set his heart to ricocheting around in his chest cavity. The dog lying next to him jumped out of his way as he heaved himself across the entryway and kicked the door shut.
Trembling from cold, from fear, from pain, he got to his knees. Put his bloody hands against the door and straightened just slightly so he could peer out the half-moon shaped window at the top. His breath hit the glass, frosting it in front of his face.
There was a neighborhood out there. A bunch of tract-built houses, twenty or so of them crammed into a cul-de-sac street. The houses directly across from him seemed intact. One a little farther down was blackened around the windows, the vinyl siding melted and pocked, the roof collapsed. The street and sidewalk were empty and scattered about with trash that clung to overgrown front lawns.
Lee scanned the streets, his pulse still knocking.
Unsure what he was looking for. Unsure what he was afraid of.
He put his back to the door and slid down to a crouch, trying to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong with me?” Lee whispered desperately. “What the hell is going on?”
Lee raised his hands to his head. Felt the sting and the hot, fleshy groove along his scalp. He recoiled from his own touch, but seized on the memory of the wound. Yes. He knew he had that wound. He knew that he’d been shot in the head. He was hurting. Maybe the confusion was because of that…
“Okay,” he muttered under his breath. “Okay. Okay.”
The dog stood in the middle of the floor, head cocked. It stared at him for a moment, then seemed to relax a bit. It licked its chops and one of its hind feet came up tentatively to scratch at his side for a moment. The dog watched his own paw, as though it moved of its own volition and he was leery of its intentions. He itched himself, then sat.
Lee closed his eyes and hung his head between his knees. It seemed to alleviate some of the pain. His breath slowed. His heart rate slowed. His thoughts seemed to slow, to stop swirling around like they were dust motes caught in a cyclone. He forced himself to think. Focus. One thing at a time.
How did I get here?
He remembered running. Remembered cold, gray branches whipping at him. The brown and tan dog just ahead of him, barking as the two of them ran through the woods. The cold ache in his lungs. Salt in his mouth as snot ran into it.
Before that.
Before that there was waking up, just like now. Except it had been dark out. He’d been confused. The dog was barking at something. He had the knife in his hands. He was looking for something else, but couldn’t find it.
Before that.
Just a set of dark, regretful eyes behind a small silver revolver.
Eddie Ramirez…
It was like he had backed his spring-loaded memory up as far as it would go, and now released it. It rocketed forward through a blur. The eyes, the gun, the waking, the pain, the confusion. Then running. Barking. Fear. Hard hands. Growling. Gnashing teeth. Straining muscles against something strong. Much stronger than him. Pulling him down. He remembered slashing out with the knife, targeting arteries. Then there was more running.
He’d slept at some point—it was dark, very dark. He was cold but exhausted. He slept in a pil
e of leaves, gathering them up over him like a blanket. Then there was a noise that woke him and he ran without thinking. Tripped and fell. An old barbed wire fence. He got up and kept going.
Then he ran through a backyard. Across the road. The dog was beside him, but it didn’t bark. He kicked open the door to a house—this house. He fell in the entryway. His body finally gave out and he didn’t get up. He just closed his eyes. Went back to sleep before his mind had time to make sense of anything.
Lee opened his eyes. The realization of it hit him like a cramp in the gut.
My GPS! Eddie Ramirez has my GPS!
“Okay,” he repeated, rolling onto his hands and knees, and then finally taking his feet, supporting himself against the wall. “Need to move. Need to keep moving. Need to get going.” He bent down and grabbed his knife from the floor, groaned as he did so. “I’ve gotta find him.”
He evaluated himself. Cold, and in pain. Beyond that, he was hungry and incredibly thirsty. He stumbled forward, still touching the wall, still holding the knife in a death grip. Another thought occurred to him: Had he even cleared the house before he passed out?
No. Because he hadn’t even shut the door behind him.
He swore under his breath. There could be infected in the house. He could have woken up to find himself being eaten, ripped apart like prey for a wild animal.
“You’ve got to get your shit together,” he whispered to himself. “No more mistakes.”
His mouth became silent, but his mind continued on.
Because there’s no one here to help you.
Because you’re alone.
As he thought the last word—alone—things became a little clearer, and his mind traced through the faces of the people he had left behind. Angela. Harper. Bus. LaRouche. Father Jim. Julia. Marie. They were all back at Camp Ryder…no…that wasn’t right. He’d sent some of them away.
Something about bridges. Bridges over the Roanoke River.
