Harden

by D. J. Molles

  Inwardly, Lee was struggling to maintain a grip on his train of thought.

  Outwardly, he didn’t let it show. He couldn’t let it show.

  “Okay,” he said. “I need one of you to take a message back to Butler, Georgia.”

  Trey chuffed. “What? No. Absolutely not.”

  Lee skewered him with a look. He knew he was not cutting the most imposing figure, laying wounded on a bed, but he also knew that rumors and legends grew tall in people’s minds, and apparently these people had heard of him. He might use that to his advantage.

  “Your man, Paolo,” Lee said. “He wants something from us. And I’m the one that can get it for him. Vehicles, weapons, ammo, medical supplies, food…” Well, we can’t really do the last one. “You name it. But if Paolo wants what we have, then this is the first step. I can’t go meet Paolo without sending a message back to my people. So, if you wanna play, then there’s gonna have to be some give and take. Got it?”

  Trey’s bottom lip peeled back, exposing his lower teeth. It was an ugly look. But…he didn’t immediately dismiss Lee this time.

  Lee gave it a moment, then pressed. “I’ll give you the passcodes to get into Butler. I’ll tell you who to meet up with. You tell them that I sent you, there won’t be any problems. You do this for me, then I’ll go meet your guy. Tomorrow.”

  Trey gestured at Abe and Julia. “Why not send one of them?”

  In his current mental state, it took monumental effort for Lee to continue speaking civilly: “No. This is what’s left of my team. They’re staying with me. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  Maybe they’d just go with Julia’s idea. Pop Trey in the back of the head and take Braxton prisoner. The prospect of violence had a centering effect on Lee. It was familiar and comfortable, like the soothing touch of some dark mother.

  This is who you are. This is what you do.

  But no.

  As often as violence truly was the answer, that was not the case here.

  “They’re both wounded,” Julia spoke up. “Lee’s the one that Paolo wants to speak to. He’s gotta be there. Abe is shot in the leg. You can’t send him—if something goes wrong with the car on the way, he’ll be fucked. I’m the medic, and I have to stay with my two wounded guys.”

  “It has to be one of you,” Lee said, trying to give it the feel of a final stamp.

  Trey and Braxton still had options, but Lee didn’t want them to feel like they had options. People with options never did what you wanted them to do. They were slippery. You had to corner them. Coerce them, sometimes.

  “Alright,” Trey said suddenly. “Here’s how it’s going to work.” He leaned back, narrowed his gaze. “I’ll send Braxton to deliver the message—”

  “Gee, thanks,” Braxton mumbled.

  “—But that means you guys are staying with me as collateral until he gets safely back. Life for a life type of thing. I take you to meet Paolo, and then all three of you remain there, until Braxton gets safely back home.”

  Lee didn’t hesitate. It was a relief to simply come to an agreement, some form of clarity in the chaos, even if that meant he became someone’s collateral. “That’s a deal,” Lee said, and before anyone could object to any of the terms, or continue the God-awful argument any further, he turned to Braxton. “Butler, Georgia,” he reiterated. “You’re gonna ask to speak to Ed. He’ll be able to get you in contact with Fort Bragg.”

  Braxton’s lips had pressed down to a grim, displeased line, and for a moment, Lee thought that, despite his best efforts at hurrying this thing along, Braxton might continue to argue.

  Instead, Braxton sighed through his nose. “Fine. What’s the message?”

  Lee did his best to not look thankful. Then he told him the message that needed to get to Fort Bragg.

  THIRTEEN

  ─▬▬▬─

  LITTLE TALKS

  They spent the night in that basement.

  Five people. Three strangers on one side, two strangers on the other.

  Such was the necessity of their circumstances.

  The only talking that occurred between the two groups was initiated by Braxton.

  He was watching Lee from the other side of the room with a sort of half-doubtful, half-hopeful expression.

  Lee was lying on the sofa bed, trying not to feel sick. Deuce had rejoined him on the mattress, and Lee’s fingers absently worried at the fur on Deuce’s neck.

  Julia and Abe were settling into the spots that had become their beds over the last four nights. Julia, beside the pullout couch, and Abe on the other side of her, up against the wall.

  On the other side of the room, Trey had already chosen a spot and was ostensibly trying to sleep now. His small, battered backpack was his pillow. His rifle next to him like a cold lover.

  The only light was from the fading solar lantern, which didn’t reach to the edges of the room, and would be reduced to dully-glowing LEDs in an hour.

  Still, it was enough for Lee to become aware of Braxton’s stare.

  Lee tried to avoid meeting the young man’s gaze, knowing it would be taken as an invitation to speak. And Lee did not want to speak. But it happened anyway.

  “Is it true what they say about you?” Braxton asked, suddenly. Like he was afraid everyone might fall asleep before he had a chance to ask.

  Lee felt his chest tighten. He finally allowed his eyes to hit Braxton’s.

  The younger man’s face was barely visible. The whites of his eyes glittered like ghost lights in the distance.

  “I don’t know,” Lee said. “What is it that they say about me?”

  “They say you stopped a horde of millions of infected. That the horde would’ve wiped out the entire east coast if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it single-handedly, if that’s what they’re saying. There were a lot of people that risked their lives to stop that horde.” Lee paused. “A lot of people that died, too.”

  “So it’s true,” Braxton said. “There actually was a horde of millions. And you guys killed them all.”

  “We didn’t kill them all,” Lee said. “But we killed enough to stop them. And if you ever meet a Marine artilleryman, you can thank him. They were the ones that did the lion’s share of the work.”

  The image of that night would never leave Lee’s brain. It would always live there in perfect clarity, and when he recalled it, he always felt exactly as he had that night: Terrified, awestruck, and relieved, as he watched from the deck of a helicopter as fire rained out of the sky and leveled the town of Smithfield, and the millions of infected that had gathered there.

  He didn’t think that memory would ever stop making his heart stutter-step, as it did now.

  “They also say,” Braxton began again, his voice more shrewd this time. “That you will kill anyone who stands in your way.”

  “Braxton,” Trey grumbled in a warning tone.

  “Even if they’re your friends,” Braxton finished.

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” Trey snapped, pulling his head up from his backpack and looking sideways at his partner.

  Braxton kept staring at Lee. “It’s a fair fucking question. Seeing as how we’re friends now.”

  Trey reached out and backhanded Braxton’s shoulder. “Let the man sleep.” Trey harrumphed back down onto his pack, turned his body away from Braxton. “For that matter, let me fucking sleep. Sittin’ around, yappin’ your jaws like it’s a goddamn slumber party…”

  Trey trailed off.

  Silence overtook the basement.

  In the cold, fading light, Lee could still see Braxton’s eyes.

  They watched each other in the dark.

  Maybe Braxton thought that Lee was staring him down, but behind his eyes, Lee was seeing his dead friends. The truth was, they haunted him because he had killed them all, hadn’t he? Through his mistakes, through his bullheadedness, through his misplaced surety in himself, they had all died.

  But the one that stared ba
ck at him most accusingly was Lucas.

  Lucas, his fellow Coordinator.

  Lucas on a forest floor, bleeding out.

  Lucas, staring up at Lee with confusion on his face.

  Lee hadn’t known how to interpret that confusion at the time, but in the hundreds and hundreds of nights since, it had become horribly clear what that confusion had meant.

  Lucas had come to North Carolina to help Lee.

  And Lee had shot him dead.

  He wondered what Lucas was thinking in that moment when he’d looked up at Lee. Had he felt betrayed? Had he felt misused? Or had he simply been confused, like a dog who’s been beaten but can’t remember what it did wrong?

  A thousand times he’d replayed that day in his mind, thinking of how he might have changed the outcome. And a thousand times he ended up hating himself, not because he’d missed a sign that might’ve saved Lucas’s life, but because he could never think of a single thing he would’ve done differently.

  This is who you are. This is what you do.

  For the first time since waking, he remembered the dream he’d had, and it came back to him in an unpleasant wave, and the dream-version of Julia stuck while the rest of it washed away, like storm tides leaving detritus on a beach.

  This is where you belong, Lee. Down here with us. Down in the ground where the light doesn’t reach.

  He fell asleep, eventually, holding onto Deuce, with those words sitting inside of him like a festering wound.

  ***

  There was one other occasion of wakefulness that night.

  Lee wasn’t sure of the hour, or how long it had been since he’d fallen back asleep, but he woke to the rumble of Deuce’s growl, a vibration in his hand, and up against his leg. He twitched up out of sleep.

  It was a Pavlovian reaction for Lee. Except that he was the dog, and Deuce’s growl was the stimulus—every time Lee heard it, he felt like his heart was trying to make a fast exit out of his throat.

  Feeling his own pulse rocking his head, Lee reached out and touched Deuce on the chest and said, “Ssh…”

  Lee couldn’t see the others in the darkness, but he had the impression of them, and he could hear them stirring.

  Deuce had stopped growling—he was at least learning the command to be quiet—but he was still issuing soft, stressed breaths, nearly whining, but without using his voice.

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  Lee prayed that Trey and Braxton knew enough to keep their fucking mouths shut. All it would take would be one of them to start talking…

  From somewhere upstairs came a sound.

  Like a fingernail on glass.

  Tap…

  Tap-tap…

  Lee became terribly aware that he’d allowed himself to fall asleep without any weapons at hand.

  He knew why—because Julia had taken all his weapons away until he regained his senses. As they’d seen earlier, sometimes when you awaken from an injury, you react violently.

  It was logical on Julia’s part, but Lee found himself loathing the decision and cursing Julia in his head.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Were the windows intact? Were the doors secure?

  Please tell me Julia thought of that. Please tell me that she didn’t remember to disarm me, but forget to secure all the entrances…

  A long time passed.

  Lee heard nothing else.

  Deuce eventually stopped his whisper-whine. Huffed, as though exhausted, and then relaxed.

  A quiet voice from beside him: “Lee.”

  Lee felt Julia’s fingers touch his left arm, slide down until they had his wrist. They pulled his hand out, and he felt the familiar grip of his Glock being pressed into his palm.

  “Chamber’s empty,” Julia whispered.

  Lee didn’t respond. He held the pistol in his left hand, against his chest, like a child might hold a favored stuffed animal, and he stared at a black ceiling that was indistinguishable from the blackness behind his closed eyes.

  ***

  Braxton left the next morning, before first light.

  Trey insisted on going with him to where they had hidden their vehicle. Gave Lee a searching glance before he closed the basement door behind them, as if to say, Don’t go disappearing on me. Then the two of them slipped out into the early-morning darkness.

  Lee felt marginally better than he had the previous night. That was enough for him to seize on and keep telling himself, you’re healing, you’re building back up, you’ll be okay.

  While he’d been unconscious, Julia had staved off dehydration with IV’s. But she’d run out the day before Lee woke up.

  She’d given him some water last night, to test his stomach. When he held that down, she gave him some water mixed with grape drink-mix from one of their MREs. She’d been saving those up for him. Figured he’d need some quick calories, and his stomach might not be ready for solid food.

  She was right about the need for quick calories. Wrong about the food.

  As the grape drink hit Lee’s stomach, he realized that a large part of his overwhelming feeling of nausea was actually extreme hunger. He hadn’t eaten in three days. And his body was trying to heal itself, robbing him even further of his miniscule fat stores.

  After he managed to keep the first grape drink down, he asked to eat, and Julia found the least harsh MRE that was left, which happened to be chicken and noodles. Lee ate it, while Julia hovered and occasionally told him to slow down.

  “Chew. Swallow,” she advised. “It’s not going anywhere.”

  Lee did as the doc ordered. Chewed. Swallowed. Waited for a moment to see if he was going to toss it back up. When he didn’t, he shoveled another gigantic spork-full in.

  “Just like Mom used to make,” he mumbled around the mouthful.

  “Your mom must’ve been a shitty cook.”

  Getting calories into his body had done wonders for him. He slept hard and dreamlessly and he woke up feeling much less like he was about to die.

  A far cry from full strength, but progress is progress.

  “How long until I’m one-hundred-percent?” Lee asked as he struggled up into a sitting position on the pullout couch, the Glock still in his hand. He racked a round into the chamber. Press-checked it. Tapped the back of the slide. Set the pistol off to the side, still warm from being hugged to his body all night.

  Julia had Lee’s three-day-pack, which she hauled across the floor and propped up against the bed, next to Lee’s bare feet. “Couldn’t say,” she said. “Depends on rest. Recovery. Nutrition.”

  “So…never.”

  Julia smirked at him. “Could be anywhere between two and six weeks. Knowing you, I’d bet on the outside numbers.”

  Lee lifted his left arm, regarded the tube coming out of his ribs, and couldn’t suppress a shudder. Sometimes he thought he could feel the other end of the tube, inside of his chest. “When does this come out?”

  “Soon. Not right now. I want to see how you do when you get mobile. If you do okay, I’ll take it out tonight.”

  Lee nodded, looked down at his pack.

  Three bullet holes marred the surface. Wide and gaping. Probably exit holes. He tilted the pack to see the backboard area, and saw the entry holes. They kept most of their packs and gear in the truck beds. It looked like his pack had gotten shot up, along with a lot of other stuff.

  He opened it and dove inside, while Julia moved over to check on Abe’s wounded calf.

  At the top of the pack, luckily unmarred, was the bag of Deuce’s home-dried, this-and-that food. Lee felt relieved upon seeing it. He’d been so out of it the previous night that he hadn’t even thought about feeding Deuce. But he saw the bag was emptier than he recalled it being, so he knew that Julia had been feeding him.

  On the floor at the foot of the bed, Deuce perked up at the sight and smell of his food bag being opened.

  Lee scooped some out onto the floor, and only made Deuce wait for a moment before letting him attack his fo
od. He watched the dog with a faint smile, then noted that there wasn’t much food left in the bag.

  Lee folded it up and put it off to the side. Went back to his pack with a frown.

  The rest of the contents of Lee’s pack were predictably perforated. But not necessarily unusable. He was currently dressed only in his skivvies. He had a fresh pair of underwear (no holes, he noted), and swapped those out with the skivvies. Found his spare combat shirt. A bullet had gone through it. The way the shirt had been tightly rolled, he now had a series of ragged holes that traced down the middle of the shirt, front and back. He pulled it on gingerly, careful not to disturb the chest tube.

  His pants had been similarly rolled, and sported a similar collection of holes, this time starting at his right hip and going all the way down the right pant leg.

  Socks were unmarred.

  “Alright,” Lee mumbled to himself, feeling better now that he was dressed. More in control. “I can work with this.” He looked up at Abe, Julia still inspecting his calf. “How you doin’?”

  “Better than you,” Abe said. He saw that Lee was dressed, and smiled. “What a transformation. You look like you might even live.”

  Lee grimaced as he twisted to pull on his boots. In the middle of a groan of pain, he managed to scoff. “Ain’t found a way to kill me yet.”

  But he felt the hollowness of that bravado.

  If it hadn’t been for Julia, he would’ve been dead.

  Ten minutes later, Trey got back. When he opened the door, Lee saw the first glimmers of dawn turning the sky from black to navy blue. Trey closed the door behind him again, then stood there, looking at them.

  They were packed and ready. Julia insisted on carrying Lee’s rig and pack. Lee insisted on carrying his rifle, with his pistol back in its battered holster on his side. Abe carried his own things, but favored his right leg.

  Trey sniffed. Eyed them critically. “Be honest, y’all don’t look like much.”

  Abe frowned at him. “Sorry. Next time we’ll try not to get shot so much.”

  Trey shrugged. “Let’s go meet Paolo.”