by D. J. Molles
“I told him…”
“Don’t do it!”
Harper burst through the crowd at the end of the LMTV and found himself in a tight circle, surrounded on one side by Mack’s people, and on the other by his own. In the middle of the circle were four people. One laid on the ground, motionless. A hatchet-faced man with wide, dead eyes that stared up at the gray sky, black blood pooling around his chest. Julia stood over the body, her hands covering the wounds, shouting at someone to get her medical pack.
A man Harper didn’t recognize, dressed in filthy rags, was bent at the waist as though he experienced some horrible abdominal pain, pointing at the dead body on the ground and screaming. Watching all of this stood Mike Reagan, his rifle at the ready, visibly shaking, his eyes so wide they seemed to take up his entire face.
Mack burst through. “What the fuck happened?” he said breathlessly.
The man that had been screaming at Julia and Mike turned, his arm still outstretched, pointing accusingly at Mike. His wild eyes bounced between Harper and Mack. “They fuckin’ killed him! That bastard fucking killed him! They killed Jace!”
Harper moved quickly across the narrow encirclement to where Mike stood. “Mike! What happened?” he yelled over the shouting crowd.
Mike shook his head in disbelief. “He was trying to steal one of our rifles…”
A random voice: “That man’s a damn liar!”
“…I told him to stop and he tried to shoot me!”
Harper looked at the body. It was laying on its back, the left arm outstretched across the concrete, the other lain along his side, but with Julia hovering over him, Harper couldn’t tell what that hand was holding. Nowhere did he see one of their rifles.
“Mike,” he shook his head. “I don’t see the rifle. He tried to shoot you with the rifle?”
Mack’s voice shot through the noise: “Harper! You wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on here?”
Mike blinked rapidly. “It wasn’t a rifle. It was a little gun. A little silver gun. He pulled it out of his waistband and I told him to drop it. I told him to drop it, I swear! But he just kept pointing it at me! I thought he was gonna shoot me, Harper! I didn’t know what to do!”
Harper realized his pulse was slamming through his body, adrenaline making it hard to think, making it hard to fully comprehend what was going on around him. He looked behind Mike, found the first face he recognized and grabbed it by the shoulder.
It was Gray.
They were sandwiched now between the two LMTVs. The one whose grill faced them was the only LMTV they’d equipped with an M2. Harper pointed to it and put his mouth nearly to Gray’s ear. “Get on that turret. If shit goes bad, you gotta do it, okay?”
Gray’s face seemed frozen, but he nodded. “Okay.”
Harper released his grip on the man’s shoulder and he disappeared.
Harper turned back to face Mack. One of Harper’s people burst through the crowd, carrying Julia’s medical pack, which he slid to her. She pulled herself off of the body just long enough for Harper to see the man’s right hand and the silver revolver still clutched in its grip.
That son of a bitch…
Harper took two steps towards Mack. “What the fuck are you tryin’ to pull?”
Mack looked genuinely confused. “What? You just shot one of my guys!”
“He was trying to fucking steal from us!”
“That’s bullshit!” the man beside Mack cried hysterically. “That’s bullshit and you know it! They’re making this shit up, Mack! They’re making it up!”
The crowd of survivors behind Mack grew louder at this last cry, and pressed in closer. Harper looked past Mack at the angry faces. Tried to tear his eyes away and look at their hands. Saw blunt instruments, a few pistols, a shotgun.
Shit shit shit.
Harper pointed to them, not able to control his shaking hand. “Mack! Push you people back!”
“You need to explain…”
“Get them back, goddamn it!” Harper yelled. He looked to his right, saw Gray’s torso working its way into the turret. “If your people aren’t on the other side of the road in ten seconds, we’re gonna open fire!”
Please don’t make me do it…please don’t make me do it…
Mack followed Harper’s gaze, saw the big-barreled M2 swing towards the crowd. His hands went out and he began to backpedal, shouting as he did. “Back it up, people! Back it up!”
From behind him, Harper could hear Mike Reagan’s voice.
“Is he dead? Oh my God…”
Harper turned, saw Mike staring at the body, Julia resting backward on her heels, bloody bandages in her hand and sterile packages for the dressings tossed about like bits and pieces of white confetti. She looked at Harper and shook her head.
“Shit!” Mike’s hand went to his head. “I didn’t mean to kill him!”
Harper stared at the man, flabbergasted. “You fucking shot him in the chest, Mike! What’d you think was gonna happen?” Never mind the fact that the stranger had pulled a gun on him. Mike had had every right in the world to take the shot, but the simple statement that he didn’t mean to kill him threw Harper through a loop.
Mike’s gaze rose, and Harper immediately regretted letting the words slip out of his mouth. He should be standing behind his man, not hanging him out to dry in front of a hostile crowd. He raised a hand is if to apologize, but Mike turned away, his face clouding.
Harper suddenly realized how quiet it had become. He could hear his own breath huffing, the steady shifting of people’s feet, the great open silence of these abandoned roadways. It was the kind of silence that roared, and made city dwellers like himself fidget uncomfortably like a small man in the presence of something vast.
He looked back to his left, to the crowd of strangers. They stared back, sullen and demur, and they stared at their fallen friend. Or maybe he was just as much a stranger to them as he was to Harper. Maybe they had just met him on the road. But he was one of them nonetheless.
The turret creaked as Gray raised the muzzle of the M2 just slightly.
Mack held his hands as though surrendering. “Look…we don’t have a fight with you folks. We’re just…we’re just trying to make it out here…please…”
Harper was incredulous. “We’re not…” he started, but the rest of the words crashed around inside his head and never made it out of his mouth: We’re not the bad guys. We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t hunt you down, or lure you into a trap. We fed you, we gave you water and medicine, we treated you like friends even though we didn’t fucking know a damned one of you. And you’re going to stand there and look at me like I’m the bad guy? Because one of your shitbag friends bit off more than he could chew? Like you have to beg for your life because we’re just a band of bloodthirsty thieves?
We’re not the bad guys.
We’re not the bad guys.
It all died behind his tongue like burning cinders. He knew damn well that saying it would do nothing for him. It would do nothing for anyone, except to make him feel better for the brief moment in time after he felt he’d said his peace, but in the end those words would only invite more trouble. More argument. It would only lengthen things, when all he wanted was for them to be over.
“Just let us go,” Mack continued. “We’ve got no problem with you.”
Harper simply stared, because there was no other expression or motion that seemed appropriate in that moment. “Fine,” he said woodenly. “Go.”
The crowd began to edge away. Bitter glares, mixed with sadness, and even confusion. Gradually, they turned southward and began to walk, while Gray followed them cautiously with the muzzle of the M2. A breeze swept down the middle of the road, along the white hash marks that seemed to delineate the two groups. It felt tense as though someone might break it with shouts of anger, but both sides remained silent until the group of strangers had passed the end of the convoy.
Harper turned back, found Julia standing over the body.
<
br /> “What do you want us to do with this guy?” she asked.
“Put him on the side of the road.”
Julia shifted her weight. “We’re not going to bury him?”
Harper cleared his throat loudly. “No. We’re not going to bury him. His own people didn’t give a shit enough to ask for his body, I’m certainly not going to trouble my own people with it.” He pointed to the shoulder of the road. “Put him over there, then pack up and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Harper left them to it, walked along the right side of the convoy, looking for Mike Reagan. The fire seemed to leave his skin, the adrenaline abating, and the cold surrounded him again. He hunched his shoulders. His fingers felt cold and stiff. He shoved them in his coat pockets.
Harper found his rifle leaning against the back end of the Humvee where he’d sat. He snatched it up as though it had wronged him, slung into it and walked around the corner of the Humvee to the lead LMTV. He opened the passenger’s side door.
Inside were both Mike and Torri Reagan. Torri in the passenger seat, looking down at him. Mike in the driver’s seat with an expression that said he didn’t want to talk.
Harper plowed ahead anyway. “Mike, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were completely in the right for shooting that motherfucker.”
Mike nodded, stared out the windshield. “I didn’t see the revolver.”
“What?”
“I didn’t see the revolver until after I’d already shot him.”
Harper compressed his lips. Wondered what the hell to say to that. Did it change anything? At the end of the day, what would have happened if Mike hadn’t taken that shot? Would the stranger have pulled the gun anyway? Shot Mike? Would Harper and his group be burying Mike because he hesitated too long?
“I saw him trying to get something out of his waistband,” Mike continued. “But I couldn’t see what it was. I just assumed it was a gun. So I shot him. That’s why I said I didn’t mean for him to die, because I didn’t mean to shoot him in the chest. I just meant to…you know…wing him. Scare him off.”
It was done. It was over with. There would be no trial, no hearing, no public backlash. The only thing left was whether Harper would support Mike. Whether Mike would trust him. Whether Mike would trust himself to make that decision in the future, rather than hesitating and getting himself hurt, or someone else hurt.
Harper shook his head. “Fuck that guy, Mike. He was stealing from us. That alone should mean that he dies. And the fact that he had the gall to try to pull a weapon on one of my people? I would have shot him myself. I’m glad you made the decision you made, because otherwise you might have been hurt. You don’t know that motherfucker from Adam. You don’t know what kind of screws are loose in his brain. You played it safe, and that’s the right thing to do.”
Mike nodded. “Okay.”
Torri looked down at Harper. She mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
Harper nodded once and turned away from them.
Julia stood against the side of the LMTV, one hand leaning on it, the other tucked into the shoulder strap of her medical bag. She regarded the concrete at her feet until Harper turned away from the Reagans. She raised her head. “Everyone’s ready to roll.”
Harper walked briskly to the passenger’s side of the Humvee, and sat down inside. Gray climbed into the turret, but he paused before situating himself and looked down at Harper, motioning his head to the LMTV that sat abreast of them.
“Everything okay with Mike?” Gray asked.
“Yeah,” Harper said. “Everything’s fine.”
Julia set her pack in the back, then climbed in and flipped the ignition switch. The Humvee took a few seconds, then squawked its long, annoying tone at her until she pressed the ignition button and it rumbled to life.
“Listen,” Harper said, loud enough for both her and Gray to hear. “Before everything went to shit, Mack was telling me about some large horde of infected that they’d made contact with right about when they crossed the I-40 corridor. He couldn’t give me a number, and didn’t know whether they were coming from Virginia, or out of Greensboro or Raleigh area. He just said there were a lot of them, and they were coming south.”
Julia tapped the steering wheel.
Gray rubbed his knees. “Okay.”
“We’re gonna kick out in front of the convoy,” Harper said. “Keep about two miles between us and them. Scout out the way ahead. I don’t want the convoy plunging right into the middle of a couple thousand infected.”
“A couple thousand?” Julia nearly coughed.
Harper shrugged. “I don’t know. Rough guesstimate.”
She looked at him, her fingers now clutching the steering wheel. “Alright. I’m with you.”
Harper picked up the radio mic and transmitted his instructions to the others. When his plan was acknowledged and understood, Julia popped the emergency brake and let the Humvee roll down the hill, putting distance between them and the convoy.
CHAPTER 13: DAYLIGHT
His heart pounded. He was cold on one side of his body, sweating on the other. He opened his eyes, saw things he didn’t understand, closed them again. He was someplace he didn’t want to be. He was trapped. He needed to get free, but he didn’t know how.
Lee’s brain endlessly pestered him with dreams. Even as a child, it seemed he dreamt more often than others, and he very rarely enjoyed the black silence of an empty sleep. They’d always been unusually clear and vivid, but lately they were choppy and disconcerting. Now, he dreamed of a cold cement chamber and a door that sounded like a vault opening, and Colonel Reid standing in full dress uniform, extending a hand to him with a pleasant smile.
“Come back to the land of the living, Captain Harden,” Colonel Reid said.
Lee stared up at him, like he’d just seen the eyes of God.
It had all been a nightmare! All the horrible death, and the pain, and the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, walking forever on a jagged line between complete despair and gutting through. An indescribable relief flooded him, made him giddy, like he was suddenly weightless.
It was all over.
Finally, it was all over.
Then Colonel Reid kicked him in the legs. “I said get the fuck up, Hero.”
***
Lee opened his eyes. Light poured in through the garage windows, illuminating the lifts with rotting, partially gutted cars still hanging on them. The cold. The stink of grease. The stink of himself. The pain all over his body. The aching fever squirming through him, making his muscles tremble, making his skin hot and sensitive to the touch, like all his clothes were made of burlap.
He looked up.
It wasn’t Colonel Reid standing over him anymore. It was an angry looking female, one hand on her hip, bent at the waist, scowling at him like she was considering punching him in the gut next, if the kick in the legs didn’t work.
Lee realized his heart was still pounding oddly fast.
What’s going on? What’s happening? Where the fuck am I?
He blinked rapidly, let out a quaky breath, tried to sit up a little straighter.
Something about a GPS…Eddie Ramirez…
“Yo, Shelley…” A young voice.
The woman standing in front of Lee turned her attention away from him. She was within arm’s reach of him, and the butt of her pistol stuck out of her waistband. He stared at it, feeling like the world moved in triple time and he was frozen in place, unable to command his body with the fluidity that he once had possessed.
Eddie Ramirez took…no…Eddie Ramirez fucking STOLE my GPS.
And like a password, the rest fell into place.
Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.
You need to get your GPS back.
You are currently being held captive. You are waiting for an opportunity—any opportunity—to escape, because time is running out for you. In 24 hours you’ll be too sick to think straight. Eddie Ramirez is in the wind with your GPS, and
when he’s gone so is any hope you have of actually saving anybody, or anything.
You are looking for an opportunity—any opportunity.
The pistol butt glared at him, only a quick lunge away.
Do or die time.
“Hey…”
Lee’s eye shot to the right, where the voice had come from.
Standing there, the muzzle of his rifle pointed at Lee’s face, was Kev. The big man shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes rock hard and narrowed like he knew every thought that was going through Lee’s head.
“I saw you fuckin’ lookin’ at that gun,” Kev growled. “Shelley!”
She spun around.
Kev gave her a look of malice. “You wanna pay the fuck attention?”
She glanced rapidly between herself and Lee, then backed up a few paces. “What’d I do?”
“Motherfucker was about to snatch your shit,” Kev spat. “Jesus Christ, woman.”
This was bad. The last thing Lee wanted was for them to realize he was thinking about escape. Lee shook his head vehemently, though he knew a complete denial would only make him look guiltier. So he deflected. “I need medicine…I need antibiotics.”
By now James, the wannabe tough-guy, had walked over, and Shumate and the Quiet Man watched as they gathered their gear around the smoldering fire. James gave him a look over with a critical eye as he approached.
“The fuck is this guy talking about?” he pointed a finger.
A rack of fever chills hit him. As miserable as he felt, he had to admit that they came at the right time. “The head wound is getting infected. I need antibiotics.”
Kev nudged him roughly with the toe of his boot. “Just keep your mouth shut.” He knelt down so he was at eye-level with Lee, just out of arm’s reach. “You do your fucking job out there, you keep control of that mutt,” he eyed the dog that huddled against Lee’s leg. “You and the dog prove useful, then maybe we find some antibiotics to keep you alive. But we ain’t wastin’ time on that shit for someone we don’t even know if we want to keep around. Understand?”
Now Shumate had walked over, fixing his pistol belt around his waist and adjusting his holster into a comfortable position. “What’s he asking for?”
