Harden

by D. J. Molles

  Angela managed a shaky nod.

  Sullivan seemed to want to have something else to say, but couldn’t come up with anything. Finally she gave Angela’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Go and sit with her. I’m going to do everything I can.”

  ***

  Lee’s sleep was not restful.

  His chest ached, and fits of wet coughing would startle him awake. He was sitting in the back seat of the truck, smooshed against the passenger door. It was not comfortable, but he was exhausted, and that exhaustion would take him down under again.

  When he slept, he dreamed of the fields and the tree, but his mind wouldn’t let go of his body completely, and the pains that he felt made it into the dreamscape, so that when he walked through the fields he would look down and see that he was dragging a long, bloody tube that was coming out of his chest, and that tube was pumping out his blood and leaving a trail of it behind him.

  When he looked at the path he’d made, he saw the ragged, inhuman shapes of primals, slipping like wraiths through the long grass, tracking along his blood trail.

  He hurried faster, but his heavy breathing burned in his lungs. Made him feel hot and feverish all over. The sky was turning from a clear, polarized blue, to a messy, congealed-looking orange.

  He reached the hill on which the tree stood. The primals were close behind. He thought that maybe if he could climb that tree, he might get away. He had no weapons. And, as he reached the tree, he realized that he had no clothes either. He was naked. Exposed. Cold, and then hot. He felt like vomiting.

  He staggered up to the tree, trying not to trip on the long tube coming out of his chest.

  The tree.

  The massive branches.

  The swing that hung from one of them.

  He heard it creaking, merrily.

  A little girl was seated on the swing, and she flew high, back and forth, like a pendulum, smiling at him as he coughed and tried to tell her that she was in danger, that she needed to climb the tree with him to get away from the primals.

  She just laughed. “Everything will be okay.”

  But it wasn’t going to be okay. Couldn’t she see that?

  She laughed and kept swinging.

  Lee was sinking into the dirt. He couldn’t climb the tree. He was going underground.

  Then he was beneath the tree.

  He was in the cavern, and the roots of the tree were deep and dark and gnarled like witch’s fingers. He stood there, coughing and bleeding and feverish, and Julia was there, with a shovel, and she was working hard, sweating and dirt-streaked, shoveling soil into a pit.

  Lee staggered to the edge of the pit and looked in.

  There were bodies. Stacks of them. A mass grave.

  On top was Tomlin, covered in oil.

  Julia tossed another shovel-full of dirt in. It pattered over Tomlin’s dead body. She rested. Planted the shovel’s tip in the dirt, and leaned on the handle of it. “It’s what we do. We bury them down deep. It’s good for the roots.” She nodded into the pit of bodies. “Look.”

  Lee looked.

  The roots of the tree were moving like snakes. They slithered out of the walls of the pit, and joined with the bodies. Piercing them. Draining them. Consuming them. They crawled over Tomlin’s body, questing, searching like blind worms. They found his nostrils. His mouth. His ears. His eyes. Went inside of him.

  Lee wanted to cry out for him, but he couldn’t stop coughing.

  “Good for the roots,” Julia said, and then continued to shovel in more dirt. “Makes strong branches.”

  Lee hacked and coughed. Collapsed onto his knees. Spit blood.

  “Jesus,” Julia said. “You alright? Lee? Lee?”

  ***

  “Lee?”

  His eyes blinked open. Bleary. Hot.

  Back in the truck. His chest felt raw on the inside.

  Julia hung over him, the dirt and grime from the cavern beneath the tree was gone from her face. Her cool hand was placed on his forehead, concern scribbled on her features. “Shit. You’re runnin’ a little hot.”

  “He okay back there?” Abe questioned from the driver’s seat. He had the cab light on so that Julia could see.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” Lee said. “I feel like shit.”

  “Here,” Julia said, tugging at his chest rig. “Get this off.”

  “I’m sure my stitches are fine.”

  Julia was opening her medical pack and pulling out her battered stethoscope. “I’m not worried about the stitches. Take the rig off.”

  Lee grumbled like an ornery dog but did as he was told.

  When he sloughed the thing off like a dead skin, she lifted his shirt and put the paddle of the stethoscope to his chest. “Breathe in deep.”

  He did so, and she listened.

  “Again.”

  He felt his lungs rattling as he did.

  She took the stethoscope away and leaned back. She gave him an evaluating look and bit her lip.

  “What?”

  She bent to her bag again, started to rifle through it. “I’m putting you on antibiotics.”

  “You think it’s pneumonia?” he asked.

  She nodded, pulling out a bottle of pills and checking the label. “Normally, we’d run a test to confirm that before putting you on the pills, but…I don’t have that capability. So we’re going to take a bet that the antibiotics will do more good than harm.”

  Lee put his hand on her wrist. “We don’t have many antibiotics left. Don’t waste them.”

  Julia looked at the bottle in her hand, seriously considering the ramifications here. Lee was right, and she knew it. Antibiotics were in short supply, and no one was making new ones. They couldn’t afford to simply shell them out every time someone had an infection. They had to let people’s bodies do their best.

  “If I don’t give you these,” Julia said, reasoning it out at the same time that she spoke. “Then there’s a strong likelihood your condition is going to worsen. Which will make you inoperable. Which puts the whole team in jeopardy.” She turned her gaze on him. Her eyes were calm and emotionless. “This isn’t a heart decision I’m making here, Lee. I’m giving you these antibiotics because the alternative will turn out to be more costly.”

  Lee’s mouth twitched. Then he nodded. “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  She gave him the first round, which was several pills. She counted them out in her hand. Lee didn’t. He shoveled them in his mouth and washed them down with water from his camelback that was body-heat warm and tasted like plastic.

  Carl was twisted in the passenger seat, watching Lee. “You gonna be operational?”

  Lee leaned back. He felt the ache of sickness in his limbs. He nodded. “Gonna have to be.”

  Carl pursed his lips and exchanged a glance with Julia, then turned back forward. “We’re almost there.”

  Maybe it was the sickness. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the cobwebs of the dream that still hung about in his mind, or the fact that Paolo had just blown his brains out hours ago, but the image came to him again.

  The trigger clicking against his finger. Striker hitting primer. Igniting propellant. A bullet blasting through his own head. That sequence playing on loop.

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep, Lee thought.

  But I have promises to keep.

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  And miles of rivers that lead to violence, eventually.

  Lee blinked at the ceiling and felt something give inside of him.

  Like giving up on stridently paddling upriver. Simply letting the current take you.

  Because you can’t fight it. Destiny is a river, and all the rivers lead to the same place eventually.

  And that was Lee’s destiny. To forever bypass the dark and lovely woods. To forever continue on, because there are promises to keep. Lee was not made for peace, was he? He was not put on this earth to be the kid that was able to swing from the branches of the tree and enjoy the sunshine and the cool bree
ze, like all the other normal people.

  Lee had been put on this earth to fight. To go down into the dark where the normal people never went, and to bury the bodies that kept that tree strong. He would never swing from that tree. It simply wasn’t his destiny. That was not where his rivers led.

  He couldn’t fight the river anymore.

  He could make himself miserable looking at the normal people and wondering why he could not be like them. Or he could look at the tree as more than just branches and sunshine, but also as darkness and roots, which supported the entire structure of it all, and take his quiet measure of pride in knowing that none of those normal people could do what he did.

  Perhaps the violence in his nature was not an affliction.

  A wild fire destroys, but it is also a part of the natural cycle.

  That is who I am, he realized. That is what I do.

  He was the reset.

  He was the tare that balanced the scales.

  Lee didn’t find peace on those dark Alabama highways. That was not for him. And he thought that it never would be. And that…that was okay. What he found was acceptance.

  ***

  They would’ve preferred some industrial site. Something with concrete walls and big metal doors. Those had proven to be the best places to hide out while on the road.

  But as the miles dwindled between them and their objective, all they could find was a farmhouse, set back off of Covington County Highway 67. It was abandoned, and didn’t look like it had been utterly destroyed, although most of the glass was broken, shards of it sticking up from the window frames like busted teeth.

  Time was short. It would have to do.

  Mitch and his team approached the house with caution and cleared it of anything that might be hiding inside. Humans. Primals. Packs of dogs. All legitimate concerns.

  When Mitch gave the all-clear over the squad comms, they parked the trucks tight around the back of the house, and went inside.

  “It ain’t the Ritz-Carlton,” Mitch said as they walked in the back door. “But it’ll do.”

  The back door opened them into a cramped kitchen with a sink piled full of dirty dishes that had been there so long they weren’t even moldy anymore. Rain and leaves from nearby trees had come in through the shattered kitchen window. Created a tiny ecosystem right under the window, which spilled into the sink with all the dishes. There was a tiny sprig of a tree growing up out of the sink, reaching for the window with its grand total of three leaves.

  The house smelled of dampness. But, for all of that, it didn’t look like it’d seen much traffic. A lot of these abandoned houses had been used and used again by God-knew who. Lee wasn’t sure who those people were, or what sect of society they came from, but they inevitably scrawled stupid things on the walls and took shits in the corners.

  Luckily, graffiti and old piles of human excrement were not in attendance.

  Someone had lived here. And then abandoned it when it could no longer keep them safe. And that appeared to be the end of this house’s story. At least until about five minutes ago.

  Lee stood in the kitchen and looked around. The turbulence inside him was calmer this morning. He felt like he was no longer fighting himself, and that was good.

  But there were still concerns. Fears. For his team. For their lives.

  This was still a long-odds mission, no matter how they cut it.

  He worried about how Julia would take it if he died that day.

  She was strong. She would be okay. He knew that. But he wondered, with a wispy sort of reticence, if he’d ever come right out and told her how much she’d meant to him. And he didn’t think that he had. And he wondered if she knew.

  But you can’t expect people to know things if you don’t say them.

  He thought about it now, but it seemed strange.

  He didn’t want to have a deathbed conversation right now.

  He wanted to do his work. He wanted his team to have confidence. Not to be worried that he was gonna kick the bucket. They needed to be focused on the objective right now, not on mortality.

  Lee looked away from her. Turned to Carl. “You ready?”

  Carl dipped his head. “Yeah. You?”

  Lee stifled a cough. “Let’s roll.”

  It was an hour before dawn when Lee and Carl dipped into the woods, heading south towards the airport. Lee, armed with his M14, and Carl with his much fancier MSR.

  Deuce tread quietly along, sticking close to Lee’s legs. He looked up at Lee as they went, and Lee put his finger to his lips, and shushed him. Hoped the dog would obey.

  The woods were quiet and serene. Just the susurration of Lee and Carl and Deuce moving through the leaves. In the darkness, Lee saw Deuce perk up a few times at something, but he never issued a growl.

  The sky was turning gray when they came to the top of a hillock. Through the half-leafed trees, Lee saw a sprawl of tarmac ahead of them. Buildings were light gray and white shapes.

  Carl and Lee came together, shoulder to shoulder and listened.

  Birds were starting to rustle and wake. Calling out to each other through the woods.

  “I’m hedging my bets here,” Lee whispered.

  Carl nodded. Looked around at the lay of the land. “Alright. Find yourself a hide.” He raised a hand, pointing to another rise in the landscape off to their right. “I’m going to make my way over there and see if I can cover another angle.”

  Carl started moving in that direction.

  Lee picked his way across the hillock, going slow, often kneeling and inspecting the skein of trees for a window. On the southern side of the hill, he found what he was looking for. It was a slight clearing right before a steep downslope. The trees opened up here, creating a window for Lee to view through.

  He knelt down again and looked around. He couldn’t see Carl anymore.

  He touched off his comms. “Mic test. Mic test. How copy?”

  Carl came back with a whisper: “Carl copies.”

  A moment later: “Abe copies at the Crash Pad.”

  Lee got himself situated at the side of a downed pine tree. He sat cross-legged and propped his rifle up onto the crumbling bark of the dead tree. Glanced to his left and saw Deuce standing there, looking out into the woods. He clucked his tongue to get the dog’s attention and then motioned for him to come over.

  Deuce seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he sauntered over.

  Lee held up a hand. “Sit. Stay.”

  Deuce chose to sit with his body up against Lee’s, either for warmth or comfort. He leaned heavily into Lee. Lee gave him a scratch behind the ears. “Good boy.”

  Then he settled down over his rifle. The cheek rest was cold against his face. He focused on being comfortable. Didn’t want to be fidgeting. He spread his legs out, and managed to squirrel them underneath the pine tree so that the trunk of it created a comfortable bench for him to lean on. He relaxed into it.

  I can sit here all day.

  Which was good. That was the point.

  A rattle and bang echoed its way through the woods. A distant noise, carried through the cool, clear air. Then the sound of a voice.

  Lee sighted through his scope. Panned it around the airport.

  From his vantage, he could make out what appeared to be two large hangars. Off the side of one, he spotted two figures. One was moving about, doing the Early-Morning-Shuffle. The other was raising a large rolling door. The rumble of the rolling door reached Lee’s ears a second or two later.

  Lee used the mildots on his reticle to size up the two men. Took a quick mental average of their heights. Judged the distance to be approximately six hundred yards. But he didn’t plan on taking shots yet. Just gathering data.

  Lee spoke into his comms, just above a whisper, slowly and deliberately so that his words were clear. “I have two hostiles. Located at the east side of that easternmost building. Both armed with rifles. AK variants.”

  Carl’s response took a little longer this time. �
��Copy. I’m just now getting into position. Standby and I’ll let you know what I can see.”

  Lee watched the two men for a moment more, taking a mental note of their clothing so that he could differentiate them in the future. One was wearing a gray top. What looked like a hooded sweatshirt. The other was wearing a green, 1960’s-style military jacket.

  Lee pulled away from his rifle and with slow, purposeful movements, pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, which he used to start taking notes.

  “Alright,” Carl’s low voice came through. “I’m situated. I do not have a good view of the eastern side of the hangar from my position. I can see the tops of them, but not the doors. But I got a good line on the other set of buildings. I got a tall one with a white roof, and a short one with a gray roof. You see those?”

  Lee settled back into his rifle. Panned to his left. “Okay,” he responded. “I can see the two buildings that you’re talking about. I have a good line on the short building with the gray roof. I do not have a visual on the front of the tall one with the white roof.”

  “I copy. I have coverage on the front of the tall one.”

  “Alright, Crash Pad,” Lee said. “Prepare to copy.”

  Abe answered up. “Go with it.”

  “Airport is inhabited by hostiles. At this time, we are focused on four buildings. These buildings are located on the north side of the airport, with the tarmac running east and west behind them. Short building with gray roof will be Building One. Tall building with white roof will be Building Two. These both face approximately northwest. The next two buildings are both the same size. Going from left to right, they will be Building Three and Building Four. Buildings Three and Four face approximately north-northeast. On Building Four, I have a visual on hostiles using entrances located on the delta-side.”

  Lee used the agreed upon terminology: The front face of a building was referred to as “A,” and then, moving clockwise, the sides of the building were B, C, and D.

  Abe came back after a moment. “Crash Pad copies. Any visual on tankers?”

  Lee scanned the compound in the distance and felt the first note of misgivings. “Crash Pad, I have no visual on tankers.”