by DJ Molles
She didn’t feel up to the task. But she was. She had been up to the task for the last two years. Despite the naysayers. Despite the Lincolnists and all their bullshit.
Still, she managed to feel the inescapable mom-guilt as she entered her home and saw that it was just Marie there at the kitchen counter, Abby having been escorted off to bed already. Another day with mom too busy to be with her.
It didn’t matter that she was fighting for their survival.
Her maternal side would never cut her any slack.
Marie turned and stood up from the kitchen counter, already gearing up to fuss over Angela. “Eight o’clock!” she exclaimed, though it was only fifteen ‘til. “You’re runnin’ yourself too hard. Come on. Sit down. Have some dinner. Have you eaten anything yet? Of course not. Sit. I’ll get you a plate.”
Angela sat, self-recrimination keeping her silent, forcing her to smile, because she knew that Marie was implacable. She was going to make sure that Angela ate her food, got her rest, etcetera, etcetera.
“Abby already in bed?” Angela asked.
“Uh-huh.” Marie went into the kitchen and started fixing a plate from what was on the stove. “I told her you’d go up and kiss her goodnight when you got in. She made me promise.” Marie gave Angela a wink over her shoulder. “Kid sleeps like a rock, though. You could always just say you did it in the morning.”
Angela smiled back, guilty that the deception was tempting. “No, I’ll go up.”
“After you eat.”
“After I eat.”
Marie put the plate in front of her. Got her a glass of water.
“Thank you,” Angela said. “I’m so sorry it took so long today.”
Marie waved her off. “Don’t even mention it. It’s the least I could do.”
Angela began to eat. A bit of crumbled mystery meat on grits.
Grits had become a staple in everyone’s ration boxes. They were easy to make out of the field corn they grew, and it kept well in storage.
“Where’s Sam?” Angela asked.
“He’s out with that girl.”
“Charlie?”
“M-hm.” Marie looked knowingly at Angela. “Got quite the crush on her.”
Angela smiled at the wondrous inference of normal teenage life. Managed to feel proud of it for a brief moment. She had helped to create that. She had helped everyone in the Safe Zone experience as much of a normal life as could be had.
That was something to be proud of, wasn’t it?
Marie shrugged. “What the hell the two of them are going out to do beats me.”
“Stuff they’re not supposed to,” Angela said, thinking of her own younger years. Thinking of them with the blissful filter of adulthood that willfully chooses to forget all the angst and heartache that came with a lack of experience, a lack of wisdom, and a lack of coping mechanisms.
But things were different when Angela had been a kid. Obviously.
Kids nowadays…they were tougher. They’d learned plenty. Maybe not quite wise, but street-smart, at least.
“I told him to be back at a reasonable hour,” Marie said. “Which I defined for him as no later than ten o’clock. Besides, he’s got guard duty tomorrow. He’ll get some sleep if he has half a brain.”
Angela nodded along as she ate, part listening, part worrying, part thinking about every other thing that had happened that day.
Shit. You forgot to get back with Doc Trent.
She’d meant to swing by his place after work, but it had gotten so late…
Was it about the dead primal that Lee had brought back? That was the only thing that Angela thought it could be. Why else would Doctor Trent want to speak with her?
God, I hope it’s good news.
It wasn’t until that moment that Angela remembered her promise to Marie.
She rested her fork on the side of her plate. “Marie, we got a message from Lee’s team today.”
Marie stopped working. Looked at Angela with full attention. “Well? Don’t hold me in suspense, hon. You make me worried when you do that.”
Angela held up an apologetic hand. “It’s not Julia. I think she’s fine.”
Relief, and then hard curiosity on Marie’s face. “Who, then?”
“Nate,” Angela said, and found her voice tight. She cleared her throat. “They got ambushed in a town in Alabama. They don’t know who ambushed them. Nate was killed.” Angela swallowed. “And Tomlin and Carl were both captured. They’re still missing as far as we know.”
Marie leaned back on the counter, braced her hands there like the wind had been taken out of her. “Shit,” she breathed.
“No one else was mentioned,” Angela said. “I guess that means they’re okay.”
“Shit,” Marie repeated. “Jesus, Angela. That’s half the fucking team.”
Angela’s appetite had fled her quickly. There wasn’t much left on her plate anyway. Enough of it gone to satisfy Marie. “I know that. And, I know I don’t need to say this to you, but this conversation stays here.”
Marie looked troubled. “Of course. Is there anything I can be doing right now?”
Angela shook her head. “Honestly, Marie, we don’t even know what we’re doing right now. We’re waiting to hear from them. Waiting to get further information from Lee. When there’s something actionable and we have a grasp on the situation, I’ll make it public, but not now. Not when everything’s still so cloudy. The last thing I need is a bunch of people asking questions.”
“I know, hon.” Marie hoisted herself off the countertop. Straightened her shirt. Drew herself up. “They’re gonna be okay,” she said with confidence that may or may not have been feigned. “Lee will know what to do. And they’ll be okay.”
Any further discussion on the topic was cut off by a knock at the door.
Angela and Marie exchanged a quick glance, first at each other, then at the clock on the stove. It wasn’t exactly late, but Angela’s gut twisted anyway. It was still later than good news typically came.
“I’ll get it,” Marie said, with a slight off-note of apprehension, then hustled over to the door. She opened it a few inches, peeked out, then swung it wide.
Kurt stood at the door. An SUV idled at the curb behind him, the red taillights glowing.
“Just got contact from Butler,” he said, holding up the satphone. “Lee’s there. He wants to speak with you.”
TWENTY
─▬▬▬─
BUTLER
The small town of Butler, Georgia had started as an outpost, and over the course of the last year, had become one of the two Safe Zones in Georgia.
As the infected had rapidly mutated and evolved, human habitation had to evolve with it. Small outposts that had been defensible in the past were now laid waste by the primals. Barriers that kept the regular infected out, were no barrier at all to the primals. So small outposts began to die out.
Now Safe Zones were the only practical way to keep people protected, and in order to be a Safe Zone, you had to have high voltage fencing, which meant you had to have electricity. If you had those things, then you could grow. If you didn’t, then you would die like the rest.
Butler had massive solar farms nearby, and so it had access to electricity. Their fences had expanded, little by little. Now they encircled a good portion of the actual town of Butler, and the population of Butler had rapidly grown from just a hundred or so, to nearly a thousand.
It was now the Butler Safe Zone, and Lee was glad to be inside of it.
The headquarters was in the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office, and the Sheriff was a guy named Ed, and he was the one in charge. Ed no longer went by his title of “sheriff,” but instead preferred to just be called “Ed.”
He no longer wore the badge, but he still wore the gun. He was an older guy, and it was a large revolver, which befitted a sixty year old man who grumbled under his wiry white mustache about how semi-automatics were unreliable, as though it were still 1917 and they were newfangled and u
nproven things.
He referred to his revolver as a “wheel gun.” He always wore his old khaki shirt tucked into his jeans. He walked like a man that had ridden a horse all day. He talked like he had a mouth full of chaw.
Lee liked him a lot.
“How long we gotta wait?” Ed commented from behind an industrial metal desk.
“Not long,” Lee replied. It had only been a few minutes so far.
There’d been no fanfare upon their arrival. No debrief.
Lee and his team, battered and much worse off than they’d been when they’d left Butler nearly a week ago, had shown up at the gate in their one remaining pickup truck. They’d given the clearances, and once inside, demanded to speak to Ed. Once they were all in his office, they’d placed the call to Fort Bragg, and now they were waiting for a call-back.
The sheriff’s station hadn’t always been inside the Safe Zone. Before they’d managed to get the fencing around it, it had predictably been looted and vandalized by those who do not care for law enforcement. When Ed had eventually reclaimed his office, it had been a disaster. The ghost of the letters FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER could still be seen on the walls.
In his cleanup, Ed had only seen fit to rescue one item of memorabilia from his bygone days. A wooden plaque with a star on it and the words Medal of Valor with Ed’s name below it. “For Valor In The Line Of Duty, May 18, 2001.” It sat in a frame on the wall right between the YOU and the COCKSUCKER.
Lee had never asked him what it was for and Ed had never cared to tell.
Lee appreciated his chosen placement, though.
Ed put his elbows on his desk and jammed his stubby fingers together. “Well, while we’re waiting, perhaps you’d care to fill us in on what the fuck is going on.”
Lee gave him a quick rundown as he pulled his armor off and dropped the plate carrier at his feet with a dull thud. It was warm in the office from the gathered body heat. He was sweating already, and his tan shirt was wet and dark in the shape of his plate carrier. Still, it was a nice change from the night outside that had turned chilly and windy.
When Lee finished, Ed ran a hand over his mustache. “Well, shit,” he said finally. “You still have his body?”
Lee felt distant from the question. As though they were talking about someone else’s friend. Some nameless corpse. Not Brian Tomlin.
“Yes. He’s in the back of the pickup.”
A long pause under Ed’s watchful gaze. Lee had to build up to the next words. Every time he was about to say them, he felt his throat thicken, and he didn’t want the others to hear that. Finally, he managed to mentally distance himself from the concept of what he needed to ask, and he was able to get the words out.
“We were hoping we could bury him here. Inside the wire.”
Ed nodded. “We’d be honored to have him. I’ll rustle up a flag. We’ll give him the twenty-one and everything.”
Lee’s jaw worked. “If it’s all the same to you, Ed, I’d prefer to just do it quietly.”
“I understand.”
“If you just point me in the right direction,” Lee gestured to his teammates around him. “We’ll handle it in the morning.”
Carl cleared his throat, shifted in his seat. “There is one other thing we’re going to have to address with you. Maybe after we get done with the call.”
Ed’s gray eyebrows raised in question.
Carl glanced at Lee, and Lee gave him a nod to proceed. “I believe we’re dealing with a leak, somewhere in the UES.”
“Why do you think there’s a leak?” Ed asked.
Carl was preparing to answer when the satphone on the desk rang.
Ed picked it up. Looked at the calling number. Passed it to Lee. “It’s Fort Bragg.”
Lee pressed the answer button and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
Angela’s voice: “Lee? Is that you?”
At the sound of her voice, Lee felt something ebb inside of him. He had almost expected her voice to cause more tension in him, but instead he almost felt a release. He stayed stock still, though. Didn’t let his shoulders relax.
“Yeah, it’s me. Did you get my message?”
“Yes.” An audible exhale. “We dispatched—”
“Hold that thought,” Lee interrupted. “Where are you and who are you with?”
A pause on the line. “I’m in my house. Marie is here. And Kurt. Colonel Staley is on the way.”
“Okay. First off, tell Marie that Julia is fine. She’s with me right now, hale and hearty.”
Angela’s voice dimmed as she pulled the phone away from her mouth. “Lee says Julia is fine. She’s with them right now.”
“Alright,” Lee continued, pulling the phone away from his ear and putting it on speaker. “You’re on speaker right now. I’ve got the team here, plus Ed from Butler. Angela, I need you to find a private place to speak.”
There was a long pause on the line. Rustling.
As they waited, Lee turned and nodded to Julia, who was closest to the door to Ed’s office, which hung open. He motioned with his head, and she reached over and swung the door closed.
“Okay,” Angela’s voice said. “I’m in my bedroom. Alone. Kurt’s outside the door.”
“Alright. Don’t put your satphone on speaker.”
“I won’t. Lee, what’s this about?”
“We were just discussing with Ed about the possibility of a leak. I want to bring you into this conversation, because we don’t know where this leak is coming from right now, so we need to play our cards close to our chest until we figure it out. I’m going to let Carl speak, because he’s the one with the first-hand intel.”
“Wait! You found Carl? Carl’s there with—”
Angela’s voice was suddenly washed out in static.
Lee twitched, grimaced at the unpleasant noise, and mumbled, “Goddamn satellites…”
They waited for the static to subside.
“Angela? You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“We lost you for a second. What did you say?”
“I was just asking how you found Carl? And were you able to find Tomlin?”
Lee stared at the phone. Felt like it had bit him. He was surprised how much the question still stung him. Quick. Like a jab straight to his throat.
He held the phone out so it was relatively close to the middle of his gathered team. He nodded to Carl.
“Ma’am, this is Carl Gilliard. Can you hear me okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re aware that Brian Tomlin and myself were captured after our team was ambushed in Hurtsboro.”
“Yes.”
Carl’s eyes stayed fixed to the black satphone in Lee’s hands. His gaze looked deliberately blank. A stone wall. “Tomlin didn’t make it,” he reported with zero inflection. “He was killed by the people that captured us.”
On the other end of the connection, there was a sound that might’ve been a burst of static, or might’ve been a harsh breath from Angela’s mouth. She didn’t say anything.
“We were held at a local airfield for a few days,” Carl went on woodenly. “Then we were picked up by an SUV and transported to another nearby location where we waited for several hours. This occurred at night. Then we were transported again, this time for over three hours. By my best calculations this put us either in Louisiana, or down into the coast of Alabama. We were taken to what appeared to be a pump station for the oil pipeline. The man in charge at that location is what I believe to be a Mexican national. He identified himself as El Cactus, and his group as Nuevas Fronteras. I’m informed that this translates to ‘New Borders.’”
Carl brought his hands together, slowly. Clasped them to one another. “Local intel that we’ve managed to gather leads us to believe that Nuevas Fronteras is a cartel of sorts, focused on controlling the flow of oil.”
“Jesus,” was all that Angela whispered.
Carl’s fingers began to tighten on each other, the skin turning white. But his
expression never changed. “He left me alive so that I could deliver a message, which I will do, not because he wanted it, but because I believe it is germane to our intelligence. He said to tell you not to send anyone else, that we would only find death. Then he said the only oil we would ever get from him is whatever we pumped out of Brian’s body. He then…” Carl seemed to have run out of air. Took a deep breath, and finished: “He drowned Brian in crude oil.”
Lee’s eyes went sharply up to Carl’s. He felt the back of his neck flood with heat, like someone was holding burning coals inches from his skin.
Carl met his gaze. Gave nothing. Just stared at him, full of empty hatred.
There is a certain tipping point that occurs in your head when wrong has been done to you. There is the desire for justice. Sometimes, the desire to extinguish the life of the person that has wronged you.
But sometimes what they’ve done puts them over the edge. And that is when killing them is not enough.
That is when you want to wipe their existence off the face of the earth. Not only them, but everyone they’ve ever loved, everyone who has ever given them safe harbor. That is when you want to plunder their entire world, burn it to ashes, and leave no stone standing on another so that a blood encrusted wasteland is all that remains as a monument to the fact that they once dared to draw a breath against you.
That is what Lee felt.
It smacked to the walls of his heart and stuck there, black and ugly.
He wanted—needed—the absolute destruction of the man that had killed Tomlin.
Ed’s chair creaked as he leaned back. Shook his head. Looked at a wall.
Carl blinked a few times, as though waking from a brief fugue. He sucked in a breath. “This man, this so-called El Cactus, he knew certain details about us that I feel strongly he could not have learned of on his own. He knew that we were coming south to search for oil. And he knew that we were coming from the United Eastern States.”
There were only a handful of times in Lee’s history with Angela that he could recall her going cold. She was a compassionate and emotive person, so it did not happen often. But this was one of those moments. Her voice sounded flat. “And that is why you believe we have a leak.”
