by D. J. Molles
Behind him, the people on the outside had fallen silent.
Jacob walked up at an even pace, rifle still trained on Doc’s chest.
“Jacob!” Doc shouted. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Jacob tilted his head just slightly at the question. “I’m trying to figure out whether or not to kill you.”
Doc slid down into a sitting position, his face going white. “Jacob…”
“I don’t see you being of any benefit to me. In fact, I see you lowering my odds of success.”
“Success at what?” Doc blubbered.
“Survival. For everyone. The human race, as a species.” Jacob shook his head. “I see you as an impediment to that, Doc. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. We just don’t have the ability anymore to put up with people like you—liars, backstabbers, etcetera, etcetera.”
“I’m not…” Doc shook his head, beginning to sweat. “I’m not…”
“Ssh.” Jacob said softly. “Don’t move.”
Doc remained still and Jacob shot him once, right on the bridge of the nose.
The crowd outside jumped at the sound of the gunshot. They gasped and drew back as Doc slumped. His right foot kept spasming, like he was attempting to point his toes. It went on like that for a few seconds, and then finally relaxed. Just the sound of blood dribbling onto the tile floors.
Jacob took a deep, shaky breath. He ported his rifle and went to the door, standing just to the side of Doc’s body. The man that Doc had been in the shouting match with now stood back a good distance, clearly nervous about Jacob. But neither him nor his group made a run for it.
Jacob motioned him forward. Had to repeat the motion several times, like he was calling for a stubborn dog. Finally the man stepped forward, close enough for Jacob to be heard through the closed doors.
“You said that LaRouche sent you here?” Jacob asked.
The man hesitated, but then nodded. “Yeah. Where’s Captain Harden?”
Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s not here.”
The man looked around. “Why’d you kill those men?”
“They would have killed me.”
“The old guy wasn’t even armed.”
“No.” Jacob looked down at the body. “But he did some other things.”
The man’s fingers worked nervously. “So what now?”
“We have food and water,” Jacob said. “And medicine.”
This caught the other man’s attention again. He eyed Jacob up and down. “Okay.”
Jacob smiled, knowing that the man knew there was a catch. “You can have it, but not before I open these doors. And before I open these doors, you have to promise me something.”
A glance behind him, then, “What’s that?”
“There’s been a bit of infighting around here the last few days.”
“I can see that.”
“Some people don’t think we should help other groups, such as yourself. But I’ve got friends that side with me. And I need help finding them. If you help me find them, you can have whatever you can carry with you.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“I am, but probably not the kind you want. I can do some basic stuff, though.”
“Okay,” the man nodded. “You got a deal.”
Jacob stepped back away from the door. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
He left the man outside, probably mystified and wondering what the hell he’d just agreed to. But the man never called out to Jacob as he walked away, and Jacob went back to the stairs, leaving behind him the dead bodies of Doc Hamilton and the two guards. He climbed the stairs steadily. Went into the third floor and into his room. He grabbed the ruck that he’d taken from Captain Mitchell that still contained everything Jacob owned in the world—he still hadn’t emptied it completely after moving to Johnston Memorial Hospital.
He stuffed everything into the pack, which was only an extra pair of pants, a battered pair of boots, and a collection of solid color t-shirts, a few white and a few black. And finally his prized possession…his Pink Floyd t-shirt. He wore it when he needed to free his mind up a bit. It put him in the mood to make leaps in his logic and think more creatively.
Then he went to this table and began pulling all the papers off the wall, then stacking them up. While he did this, he looked at the notebook one last time, shaking his head, sad to his core. Then he slapped the pile of loose notes down into the middle of the notebook and closed it like an overloaded sandwich. He stuffed the whole thing into his ruck.
He swung it up on his back, grabbed the lantern off his desk, and exited the room without looking back behind him. Always forward. Never look back. You can always second guess your decisions, but why? You were incapable of changing them. Forward was the only way.
He went to the stairs again, but this time he did not go down. He went up. To the neonatal ward. He pushed into the room, found it dark. He got the uncomfortable sensation that Stacey had gotten out and now lurked in the shadows, waiting for him. He clicked on the battery powered lantern and held it up. The pale light cast a moon-glow over everything. He stepped into the ward.
From the neonatal room he could hear a clatter.
Good. Stacey was still in the room.
She smelled him getting closer, or saw the shifting light from his lantern, and began to growl menacingly. He approached the window cautiously. He knew that she couldn’t break through it—she’d already tried, and Jacob had been relieved to see how sturdy the reinforced glass was—but it was still nerve wracking to walk up to the glass and have her lunge at you.
Tonight she was burrowed under the bed. The tray where they had piled her food was licked clean and tossed into the far corner of the room. She was only partially under the bed—her pale rear end sticking out just slightly, her spine twisted to look behind her and glare at him. When she saw him at the window, she slunk further underneath the bed, muttering.
Jacob forced down a shivery feeling and walked around to the doors. He unlocked it and swung the doors open, raising his rifle at the same time. The lantern hung from the hand that gripped the fore-end of his rifle, and it dangled, the light washing back and forth, like they were on a rocking boat.
“Stacey,” he said softly.
As though she would recognize her name and come to him.
He knelt down slowly so that he could see under the bed. The light from his lantern glistened in her squinted eyes. She opened her mouth and hissed at him, and it glistened there too.
“I can’t just leave you up here,” Jacob said with a note of regret. “Sorry, Stacey.”
He pulled the trigger rapidly. The first few shots caused her to come lurching out from under the bed in panicked aggression, all the hormones in her body telling her simultaneously to attack him, to defend herself, and to defend the wretched offspring growing in her belly. But the next few rounds slowed her down, and the last three ended her life.
Jacob stood up. And for a moment of weakness, he did look back. He looked back at who he’d been only months ago, and he wondered about himself. He wondered what things were twisting up inside of him, changing and souring and hardening. It was not so much the things that he did, as the fact that he did them so casually. What kind of a man was he?
He left the neonatal ward and went back downstairs. In the lobby, he unlocked the front doors and forced them open. Then he stood face to face with the other man. He extended his hand, but then saw that there was a spot of blood on it. He stared at it for a long time, but then the stranger’s hand enveloped his, seemingly oblivious to the blood, and he shook it.
“Brett,” the man said.
“Jacob Crane,” Jacob tried to force a smile, but couldn’t. “Pleasure.”
***
Stay awake…
Stay awake…
Lee jerked slightly as he felt his chin touch his chest. Despite the cold and the discomfort and the numbness sinking into his fingers from the ropes around his wrists, he was falling asleep.
The warmth of Deuce sleeping fitfully at his legs seemed to mentally draw him in, so that he focused on it, and ignored the other things.
Like the chills, that might have been from the air, but might have been from fever. He felt rotten, and it was difficult to tell whether it was from dehydration and fatigue, or the infection that he feared was setting into the ragged wound on his scalp.
He needed to get free. He had to escape. Or he was going to die.
He lay there, staring across the open space between himself and the dwindling fire, while Kev stroked his beard and stared back. Kev was the second watchman. The first had been Shelley. Lee had to guess that it was close to three or four in the morning, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep himself awake. He fast approached that point of exhaustion where rocks became pillows and standing up was as good as lying down.
The only thing keeping him awake now was the throb of adrenaline that pushed his eyes open each time he remembered the simple fact that time was not on his side. Time was slipping away. Time was his enemy.
Stay awake…
Stay awake…
Stay awake, because the next opportunity you get, you’ve got to take it. You’ve got to take it and get the fuck out of here. All bets are off. No holds barred. Do or die time.
He could feel himself fading anyway. He knew he needed the sleep, but he knew that if he awoke confused, he might miss the one, fleeting opportunity when it came to him. Sleep was like a river that would wash every damn memory out of his brain, force him to build it all back up again like broken dams. If he could just delay the flood…
Just keep reminding yourself of what you’re doing.
Eddie Ramirez shot me in the head and stole my GPS. I am somewhere north of Sanford. I have to get my GPS back. Eddie Ramirez shot me in the head and stole my GPS. I am somewhere north of Sanford. I have to get my GPS back. Eddie Ramirez…shot me in the head…fuck…I feel like shit…and something about my GPS…
Eddie Ramirez…
Stay awake…
He fell asleep.
CHAPTER 11: VISITORS
Julia and Gray made the first fire that they’d had since leaving Camp Ryder. Harper had looked at them like a longsuffering parent when they’d cleared it with him. Generally fire was a bad idea. It could be seen and smelled from a long way off. But they’d selected a little spot in the corner of an overpass just behind where they’d parked the convoy. The overpass distributed the smoke from it, and overgrown brush along the edges hid it from view.
Julia and Gray crouched beside the small flame. Gray smiled wistfully and Julia remained focused, piling on small twigs and feeding it until it could take a few larger branches. They didn’t intend to keep the fire going very long, but it had been a few days since anyone had eaten a hot meal, and Angela thought they could use the morale boost.
Gray held his hands out to the warmth. “You start a fire like a pro, Jules.”
Julia glanced up at him. “When we were growing up, our dad used to take me and Marie camping. Never had a boy, so it was on us to do all the camping and fishing and shooting.” She smiled slightly. “It was fun though. I enjoyed it.”
Gray watched her. “That where you learned to shoot like that?”
“Deer hunting,” Julia said. “Every November, just after Thanksgiving.”
They were quiet for a bit and Julia just sat there, letting the fire grow on its own, no longer having to tease it to life. To the west, the red sky began to darken to purple, all the light dipping down below the horizon.
Gray watched the fire. “You worry about her?”
Julia settled down into the dirt, sitting cross-legged. “Marie?”
Gray nodded.
“Yeah. Of course I do.”
“She’ll be okay,” Gray said. “Both of you are strong-minded. You don’t give up easily. That’s good.” He sighed, seemed about to say something else, but held back.
Julia eyed the older man. “What about you, Gray? When are you going to reveal the mystery that is you?”
He laughed, coldly. “No. No mystery.”
“Then talk,” she prodded, reaching over to retrieve the open can of baked beans she intended to heat up. “Tell me something new about the man we know as Gray Beard. Where’d you come from? How’d you get here?”
He stroked his longish goatee, then folded his hands in front of his face. “Well…I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you ask me one question—any question you want—and I’ll answer it honestly.” He held up a finger. “But you only get that one question, so make it a good one. I don’t like to talk about myself.”
Julia set her can next to the fire. “Why don’t you like to talk about yourself?”
“Is that your question?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s make that my question. And I expect a completely honest answer from you Gray.” She looked at him very seriously, all the playfulness suddenly drained out of the moment. “Why don’t you like to talk about yourself?”
He sat there for a while, considering the question. Julia didn’t press. She waited patiently. Gray’s eyes remained fixed on the fire, and when she looked up at him, she could see a small, white glimmer hovering around the bottom of his eyes, which he quickly blinked away.
“You know, I had a daughter,” he said quietly. “About the same age as you. But she wasn’t like you, or Marie. She wasn’t…strong enough. I’m afraid that she got that from me. I was never much of a fighter. Might even consider me a bit of a pushover. Her mother did, anyways.”
“Seems like you’ve changed,” Julia pointed out.
“Yeah,” he said with a note of bitterness. “I’ve changed.”
“Sometimes that’s a good thing.”
He met her gaze. “Depends on how you’ve changed. The person I was seems like a past life. Like I did something horrendous in that past life and this is a new life that I’ve been punished with. Isn’t that how reincarnation works? You do something wrong in the past life, and your next life gets worse?” He shook his head. “That’s why I don’t talk about myself. Because I don’t know the man I was, and I’m not sure who I’m turning into.”
“You’re not turning into anything bad,” Julia said.
“Am I not?” he raised his eyebrows. “You know, Jules, of all the things in this world to be afraid of, the thing that I fear the most is what I see myself becoming. It’s not a good thing to fear yourself. But I guess that’s all part of the punishment, huh?”
Julia poked at the fire, silent.
Gray stood, his knees popping loudly. He smiled forlornly. “I told you I’d be honest.” He turned away from her. “I’ll let the others know the fire’s ready.”
***
Harper drew the short straw for watch. No one wanted the last shift, because the last three hour shift took you to dawn, and there was no sleep after that. If Harper wanted to be a dick about it, he could have removed himself from the watch rotation—the man in charge needs his rest and all that—but he had never seriously entertained the idea.
Four o’clock in the morning found him standing atop the LMTV, hunched against a sharply cold night, and thinking about, of all things, a Bavarian crème donut. He thought about the way the chocolate icing on top would dry, so it would have a layer of crisp, and then soft chocolate underneath. The way the glaze would flake off on his fingers when he grabbed it. And of course, he couldn’t avoid thinking about the fact that they were made and sold fresh. Which meant he would never have one again. At least not until someone opened a donut shop, and he didn’t think that was in the plans just yet.
He sighed, attempted to turn his mind from useless things. He looked skyward, stared at the moon, its haunted face in full, stark view, staring down at the world with an undeniable expression of sadness. It always struck him that the face in the moon seemed to be partially turned away, as though for the last few thousand years, it had slowly, and with monumental effort, been trying to turn its back on humanity.
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br /> He faced the other way.
Don’t want to think about food. Don’t want to stare at the moon.
His breath fogged the air as he sighed.
Don’t want to think about Annette.
Don’t want to think about anything sad.
But there wasn’t much else.
With his back to the cab of the lead LMTV, he looked down the column of vehicles parked in the middle of the highway, edged onto the right shoulder of the northbound lanes of Highway 421, heading into Greensboro. Progress had been especially slow that day. They’d had to clear almost a dozen wrecks and seemed to be interrupted every half-hour by infected in the woodline that probed and howled and made them abandon their work, but never left the safety of the forest and attacked them.
“Packs during the day?” Julia had mused.
Harper didn’t want to say it, but did anyway: “Could be the hunters.”
They were now just a few miles from the I-85 spur that Harper intended to use to circumvent Greensboro. The overall plan was to thread the needle, so to speak, between Greensboro and Durham, carving out their supply and escape route so that it sat between the two major population centers, and hopefully avoided both.
Or became smashed between them.
He grew bored of his view, staring at the tops of the trucks, and he turned to face northward again, where the road sloped down. Long and straight, and then back up again on the other side. In the depression, a cluster of cars had gathered like water pooling at a low point. Their windshields glowed brightly with the reflection of the moonlight. They appeared to twinkle.
At first, he didn’t think much of it. Kept looking around, bored out of his mind. But then, the third or fourth time he scanned over those cars, the twinkling windshields struck him as odd. He leaned forward as far as he could over the cab of the LMTV, his eyebrows cinching. All through the center of the crowd of vehicles, windshields winked at him, the moonlit reflection being blotted out by something for such a brief moment that it was almost unnoticeable, but it just kept on happening, like the same object was passing in front of the windshield, repeatedly.
