by D. J. Molles
The driver’s door of the LMTV opened and Mike Reagan slid out, holding his M4. “Need some help?” he called as he jogged to catch up.
“Sure.” Harper smiled perfunctorily and looked at Julia. “Any of them have clothes on?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “They were all wearing their pants this time.”
“Jackpot.”
She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, began to pull them on. “Let’s get to it.”
They walked out past the end of the convoy. The last vehicle was one of the Humvees, and the gunner lounged in the turret, seemingly amused by what had just occurred. He was a fifty-something man with a gray beard that made him seem like he belonged in leather and riding a Harley. People tried to question him on what he used to be, but he would just smile and change the subject.
Most had settled on him somehow being involved with the local chapter of the Outlaws.
A theory that came in a close second was that he had been a bounty hunter.
Dave, Harper thought, but everyone called him Gray, short for Gray Beard.
And somehow he knew how to use the M2.
Harper nodded to him, and Gray nodded back.
“You get ‘em?” Gray asked Julia.
Julia nodded. “Yeah, I got ‘em.”
“Good job, Jules.” He sat back, hitched an elbow up on the M2.
The three of them made their way down the highway. There were a few cars shoved off to the side, but otherwise no serious snarls between them and the dead infected. An old traffic accident lay farther on, perhaps a half a mile. It looked like it involved several vehicles and had caused others to back up and crunch in close to each other, blocking all the lanes of traffic and even the parts of the shoulder that could be used to skirt around the wreck.
It was these clusters of broken vehicles that had caused sixty miles to take two days to travel. Their primary objective was to reach Eden, North Carolina. But their secondary objective was to clear a supply and transportation route on the way, which meant winching fallen trees and wrecked and abandoned cars out of the road. And there were plenty of both.
They arrived at the first body. It was the one that Angela had shot last, through the chest. It was a male, probably in his mid-twenties. A shaggy, dreadlocked head of sandy hair. A mangy-looking beard, plastered with crusted blood and only God knew what else. He wore a tattered pair of gym shorts and a single sneaker that had stayed stubbornly affixed to his foot through months of whatever torture he’d put himself through.
Harper made a face and looked off. “Don’t think you’ll find much there.”
“Yeah,” Julia’s voice strained as she bent down and patted the two side pockets of the gym shorts. “Nothin’ there.”
“On to the next.”
The next one was the female, shot cleanly through the neck, severing her spinal column. Young, probably in her late teens. A pair of jeans that had probably once been skin-tight, but now hung loose on her emaciated frame. A tattered old bra with the cups long since ripped away, exposing her small breasts. The smell of this one was particularly bad when they approached. Distinctly fecal.
They curled their noses and looked at the jeans that had contained every movement of the infected girl’s bowels for the past four months. They were dark and stiff with it, and Harper could only imagine what kind of horrendous, infectious rash her skin had developed underneath the denim.
Julia held a hand in front of her face, cringing, and poked at the front pockets of the jeans with a single index finger, felt nothing, then pushed the body over with her foot so that it slumped onto its side, exposing the back pockets. There she saw a collection of small plastic squares, imprinting from inside the pocket. She knelt down quickly and stuck her hand in the pocket.
“Got something,” she grunted, then stood quickly and moved away from the body, holding up a pair of credit cards and an ID.
Harper scratched his beard. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”
Julia discarded the two credit cards, but held up the ID. “From Raleigh.”
Harper nodded. “Good so far. We’re one for one.”
Julia tossed the ID back onto the body and they continued on.
Fifty feet from the dead girl lay the first infected that Julia had killed. A middle-aged man, wearing the shredded remnants of khaki dress pants and half a tank top that hung in tatters from his shoulders and waist. Julia poked through his pockets and managed to come up with a brown, leather wallet.
She flipped it open. Found herself staring at a smiling family.
Harper stood next to her, almost flinched at the sight of the portraits.
Julia flipped quickly through—a set of baby photos, a picture of the dead man sitting beside a Golden Retriever. She ripped the photos out of the wallet and tossed them away from her. There was nothing to be done for him now. He was dead. In all likelihood, his family was dead, too.
And he’d probably been the one that killed them.
Harper watched the photographs flutter through the air, the plastic lining flashing briefly in the sun before it landed on the ground. Like a dead bird. He turned away from it. Didn’t want to think about all of that right now.
Julia rifled through the rest of the contents and found the ID. This time she looked at it with some interest. Her eyes flicked up to Harper’s. She extended it to him, slotted between her index and middle fingers.
Harper took the ID card and looked it over.
“Danville, Virginia,” he said.
Julia chewed her lip for a moment, looking up the road. “Could just be coincidence.”
Mike Reagan leaned over Harper’s shoulder to look at the ID himself. “It’s only the second Virginia ID we’ve seen.”
“How many don’t have IDs on them?” Harper asked, flicking the card away from him. “A fucking lot. Most don’t have ID on them. So we’ve seen two Virginia IDs out of how many? Maybe five total?” He shook his head. “Shitfire.”
There was really nothing else to be said. The trio scanned the area around them and saw nothing else to catch their eyes, so they turned back towards the convoy and began walking again. As they approached, Harper could see Nate Malone standing at the front of the lead LMTV, rifle hanging from his makeshift sling, arms crossed over it. The first man to volunteer when Lee asked for help, and the one that had organized and convinced many of the other volunteers. Harper wondered if he regretted it now, leaving his wife behind at Camp Ryder and coming out here on a long-odds mission.
Nate nodded as they drew closer. “We’re ready.”
Harper took a deep breath and looked down the column of vehicles to the end, where the Humvee was positioned, facing in the opposite direction. Back towards Camp Ryder. Devon Mills, the young, flush-faced kid from camp pushed his pack into the passenger door of the Humvee.
Harper made eye contact with Nate. “Are you sure you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got enough food and water and ammunition?”
Nate smiled. “Yes. We have everything.”
“Alright.” Harper’s lips drew out, thin and pale. “Be careful. Keep yourself and Devon alive.”
“I will.” Nate turned partially, but then stopped and looked back. “We’re gonna find out what’s going on at Camp Ryder. We’ll be back before you know it.”
CHAPTER 7: SMOKE TRAILS
LaRouche’s convoy roared down two-lane blacktop, riding directly on top of the double-yellow line. LaRouche sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, trying to read a map as the freezing wind from his open window jerked the paper around.
“Four-way up ahead,” Wilson called.
LaRouche frowned and turned the map counterclockwise. “Uh…keep going. I think.”
He hazarded a glance out the window. They headed east into the sunrise. Now the gouts of black smoke were to the south. LaRouche had been trying to navigate them around whatever catastrophe the smoke was rising out of, but now it seemed thicker and
closer than before. Like no matter where he took them, they were being drawn there.
All roads leading to disaster.
Whatever was going on, it couldn’t be more than a mile away.
They passed the four-way stop and LaRouche forced his attention back to the map, jabbing his finger at their last known location and tracing it along thin lines until he saw the four-way stop they’d just passed through. The road curved, and when they had turned through it, the smoke was rising almost directly in front of them.
“Sonofabitch.” LaRouche shook the map. “Just fucking stop. Stop!”
Wilson looked pissed. He slammed on the brakes. “Where the fuck are we going?”
“I’m figuring it out!” LaRouche yelled. “I don’t have a goddamned GPS! Gimme a fuckin’ minute to read this piece of shit map!” He wrangled the oversized paper around. Despite the cold air, sweat gathered on his eyebrows. “Okay…okay…Go up here and hang a left on 7 Pines Road…”
“Sarge…”
LaRouche tried to fold the map, but couldn’t find the creases and began to simply ball it up in anger. “Just go up and make a left on 7 Pines Road.”
“Sarge!”
LaRouche turned to Wilson. “What?!”
Wilson pointed down the road.
LaRouche looked where Wilson was pointing. He dropped the map, snatched up his rifle.
Father Jim leaned out of the backseat, grabbed LaRouche’s shoulder. “Don’t shoot! It’s just a kid!”
Directly ahead of them, a small figure stood. She couldn’t have been more than four years old. She wore what looked like a home-spun dress—little more than a sack with holes for the arms and head. She walked barefoot, with the stunted, shambling steps of someone on the brink of delirium, her chest hitching rapidly. Over the idling engines LaRouche could hear her sobbing hysterically.
LaRouche pushed his rifle through the window. “She’s infected.”
“She’s crying!” Jim almost shouted in his ear. “Don’t shoot her!”
LaRouche looked at Wilson.
The driver glanced back and forth between LaRouche and the little girl, shaking his head just slightly. “Sarge…I don’t think she’s infected.”
She drew closer to them. Slowly but surely. Didn’t even seem to register the convoy of vehicles that blocked her path. Her thin arms were locked stiffly at her sides, but the small hands opened and closed like she was trying to grab something. Her round face was grimed and streaked with her tears, her mouth open as she cried, eyes nearly closed.
“Fuck.” LaRouche muttered, trying to search the girl’s face for something that might tell him the truth. She was thin, but she didn’t seem starved. Dirty, but not soiled. Desperate, but not insane. No blood on her face. No blood anywhere on her.
Still…
LaRouche stamped his foot a few times as though he wished there was a gas pedal there to take him out of this situation. He knew what the others wanted him to say, but he didn’t want to say it. He wanted to tell them to drive away, leave the little girl and all of her problems behind. But Wilson and Jim…they would want to save her. Of course they fucking would.
Wilson cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“Come on, LaRouche,” Jim said. “It’s a little girl.”
LaRouche turned on him. “I know that, Jim. But I need you to think ahead for two fucking seconds. We can’t take a kid with us where we’re going. We don’t have the time to get involved in this bullshit right now. It’s just a bad idea.”
Silence in the Humvee. Long, uncomfortable silence. The kind that only existed because no one could even wrap their heads around what LaRouche was trying to tell them. They couldn’t even come up with words to rebut him because what he was saying was in a language they didn’t speak. All they could see was a little girl walking down the middle of the road, crying.
And time was wasting.
LaRouche swore. “Fine! Fuck you both!” he punched the dashboard, then kicked open his door. “Jim, you’ve got thirty seconds to grab her and get her in the fucking truck and then we’re gone, you understand that?”
“Okay,” Jim said.
“Wilson, me and you are going to move up with Jim and keep him covered until he gets the girl in the car.” LaRouche slid out of his seat. “And for the record, I still think this is a horrible idea. I just don’t have the time to talk sense into you.”
“Okay,” Wilson cranked the truck out of gear and yanked the emergency brake.
LaRouche looked back at the convoy, held up his hand, palm out: Stay put.
Jim and Wilson piled out. The three of them moved forward, Jim in front, with Wilson to his left and LaRouche to his right. Jim stepped quickly, his rifle slung onto his back, his hands open and exposed to the girl to show that he meant no harm. He put a finger to his lips, trying to tell her to be quiet, but here in the thin morning air her wail bounced from woodline to woodline.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
LaRouche cringed, forced his eyes off of the little girl. He scanned back behind her, then all around them and into the surrounding woods and pastures. Watched for movement. For things rustling through the trees, slipping through the grassy fields.
This is a fucking mistake.
As they pulled up closer to the little girl, she stopped moving forward, but her feet still stamped restlessly, as though she couldn’t figure out what to do with herself. LaRouche edged passed her, giving her only a cursory glance, but noticing how her entire body trembled so violently. From fear or from cold, or both.
Jim knelt down with the girl. “Hey, sweetie…”
“Daddy!” she continued to wail. “I want my daddy!”
“Can you come with me? You’ll be safe with us.”
“Daddy!”
LaRouche glanced back and raised his voice over the girl. “Jim! Grab her and let’s go!”
Jim reached for her. “Okay, sweetie, I’m gonna pick you up and take you back to our car so you can be safe. It’s okay, we’re the good guys. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
She didn’t resist it. Like she was frozen. Like she had no control over herself.
Jim picked her up, cradling her against his shoulder. He turned back for the Humvee and began jogging.
“They’re hurting Daddy!” the girl screamed.
LaRouche looked down the road but couldn’t see anything but the triple columns of smoke. He and Wilson began to move back, following Jim. The girl yelled something else now, but between his rattling gear and huffing breath, LaRouche couldn’t make it out. He turned to Wilson as they ran. “What’s she saying?”
Wilson just shook his head.
Jim reached the vehicle first. He shifted the little girl on his arms and opened his door. LaRouche and Wilson pulled up right behind him and just before Jim set the girl in the Humvee, she yelled again, and this time LaRouche heard what she yelled.
“They’re gonna hurt Daddy on the cross!”
Jim put her in the vehicle and closed the door.
With the girl in the car, LaRouche could hear something he hadn’t been able to hear before, but it was short lived as though the sound had been carried to him on the wind, and it died as quickly as it registered with him. Coming from the direction of the columns of smoke, LaRouche heard people screaming.
Then nothing.
He brought a hand to his head, raked his fingers along his scalp.
“LaRouche…” Jim said.
“We gotta do something,” Wilson jumped in.
LaRouche didn’t argue with them this time. He felt shaky. Liquid on the inside. He just hissed through his clenched teeth and looked back down the road. He knew this was going to happen. He fucking knew it. That’s why he didn’t want to mess with the little girl in the first place. You couldn’t just mess around with parts of the problem. You had to tackle the whole goddamned thing.
Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Without responding, LaRouche turned and opened his door.
He leaned in and snatched the radio handset from its cradle and brought it up to his mouth. “Lucky and Joel. Up front. Now.”
Down the convoy, two doors opened and the men piled out and came running.
LaRouche moved to the rear of the Humvee and opened the fastback. He reached in and grabbed his pack and then slammed it closed. By the time he situated the straps on his shoulders, Lucky and Joel stood next to him. An interesting combo with Lucky’s bright red hair and Joel’s white-blonde Q-tip top.
He pointed to Lucky. “You’re with us.” He turned to Joel. “Joel, you’re gonna drive this thing. There’s a little girl in the backseat. Go up to 7 Pines Road and make a left. Pull off and wait for us there. If we’re not back in an hour, or if you guys start taking contact, move back to the warehouse we slept in last night. Understand?”
Joel nodded quickly. “I got it.”
LaRouche shouldered his rifle and turned to his three companions, Jim, Wilson, and Lucky. “Alright. Let’s move.”
***
LaRouche led them into the woods on the right-hand side of the road, plunging in about a hundred yards until they could barely see the road. They skirted along as quickly but as quietly as they could, urgency pushing their footsteps faster and faster until they were almost running.
LaRouche couldn’t hear the screams anymore. Wasn’t sure if he’d ever even heard them in the first place, or if he’d just imagined them. Whether he’d heard them or not, now it was eerily silent ahead of them. Silent like a spider in a web.
Maybe he was being paranoid…
A single gunshot cracked through the woods.
LaRouche’s first instinct was to hit the dirt but he stopped himself at a half-crouch. He knew what a bullet sounded like when it was aimed in his direction, and what he heard was not that. What he’d heard was the clear and singular pop of a pistol round, and no hiss or zing or splitting branches that he would’ve heard if it were aimed at him.
He looked back at the others. They had followed his lead and crouched down a couple yards back from him, all three sets of eyes stretched open wide. He motioned with his head to keep moving, then rose out of his crouch, pushing on while the others fell into step behind him.
