by D. J. Molles
The back lot was half paved, and half dusty gravel. Two small sedans and a pickup truck sat abandoned, parked along the rear of the buildings. There were two entrances into the back lot, one from the south, and one from the west. The western entrance was only wide enough for one vehicle to pass through at a time, while the southern entrance was much bigger. For this reason, Lee made the decision to block the southern entrance. The materials to barricade it would be harvested from the refuse around them, including the cars already parked in the back lot, dumpsters, and any other heavy objects they could haul into place.
While the rest of the team finished offloading the Humvees, Lee sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle and grabbed the handset to the SINCGARS radio mounted inside. He dispensed with proper radio protocols and used plain English when he spoke.
"Captain Harden to Camp Ryder. How do you copy me?"
A hiss of static.
A gravelly voice answered. "Yeah, I got you, Captain."
Lee smiled. "Morning, Bus. Haven't had your coffee?"
"Don't remind me. Haven’t had coffee in months." Bus cleared his throat. "Did you get Lillington cleared?"
"Yeah, it's clear."
"Anybody hurt?"
"Nope." Lee looked out at his team, now in the process of breaking into the abandoned cars in the back lot so they could be moved and used as barricades. "They're just getting everything set up right now."
"Sounds good. I know Old Man Hughes won't tell you, but everyone from Dunn really appreciates what you're doing out there. It’s been cramped quarters over here."
Lee nodded. Old Man Hughes was the leader of nineteen other survivors from the town of Dunn to the southeast. He was a crotchety old bastard, but for some reason the Dunn survivors loved him. Due to overcrowding at Camp Ryder, the twenty from Dunn were slated to move to Lillington and establish an outpost there, along with another twelve from Fuquay-Varina.
"Not a problem," Lee said simply.
"I'll let Old Man Hughes know. They'll be on their way shortly. Any trouble on the roads?"
"No, the road was clear. Make sure they stick to the route we planned."
"Will do. What time should we expect you back?"
Lee thought out loud. "I think we'll leave most of the scavenging for the new residents. My guys need some sleep and I need to restock some of our ordnance. So we'll probably head out shortly after they get here." He clucked his tongue. "I'd say around noon at the latest."
"Sounds good. See you at noon."
"Roger. Out." Lee put the handset back on its cradle.
As he stood from the Humvee, he watched Harper exit the back door of the pharmacy. The older man's face was clouded, and he approached Lee with a purposeful walk, avoiding eye-contact until he was standing right in front of him.
Lee felt that old familiar certainty of the worst-case-scenario creeping up on him. “What’s wrong?”
Harper squinted one eye. "Not really sure."
Lee stared at him blankly.
"Take a look at something." Harper began walking back towards the pharmacy, and Lee followed. "Jim just pointed it out to me. I hadn't noticed it before but...well, just come look."
They made their way through the pharmacy to the open front door and out onto Front Street. In the middle of the road, mired by bodies lying two-deep in places, and surrounded by the overwhelming stench, Jim stood and looked around at the corpses, a finger pressed thoughtfully to his lips. Lee turned to catch a glimpse of the rooftop behind and above him and saw LaRouche resting his elbows there on the abutment. The sergeant met Lee's eyes and gave a minimal shrug, as though Father Jim’s actions mystified him as well.
Lee stood at the edge of the blood bath. "Jim?"
The man in the tortoiseshell glasses looked up and nodded by way of greeting.
Harper put his hands on his hips. "Tell him."
Jim looked around, hesitantly, as though he was in the process of some complicated calculation, confident that his math was correct, but somehow coming up with the wrong answer every time. Finally he gestured to the bodies around him. "There are no females."
Lee's brow narrowed.
He looked around as though he might prove Jim wrong. He stared down at the pale limbs covered in dried and fresh blood. Their clothing barely clung to them in tatters. It was difficult to determine gender by a glance—malnutrition robbed them of most of their distinctions so that all that remained were bony sacks of flesh. Lee had to look at their faces and see the grizzled, mangy beards, clumped together by clots of blood. Some of them were too young to have beards, but they were male as well. He searched and searched, but could not find a single female to discount what Jim had said.
"That's weird," Lee spoke slowly. "But..."
"There were none in the last two traps we set in Smithfield, either." Father Jim looked at him with fevered eyes. "Or at the university. Or at Dunn. In fact, when was the last time you saw an infected female, Captain?"
Lee didn't respond.
He had no answer.
"What do you think happened to them?" Harper asked quietly.
Jim began carefully stepping between the bodies, making his way towards Lee and Harper. "Not sure," he said simply. "Could be that they aren't as strong, so the male infected feed on them."
Lee thought back to the young girl, the first infected he'd encountered as he stepped out of his house and into this new reality, so long ago. She had been a scrawny thing, but shockingly powerful. "I don't know about strength being the issue," Lee said. "Besides, if that were the case, why not kill and eat the young ones too?"
Jim shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm just making an observation."
Lee stared down at the bodies for a moment more. He could find nothing further to say on the subject, so he nodded his head back towards the buildings. "Let's get rid of these bodies. I don't want to give the assholes from Fuquay-Varina anything else to bitch about."
***
They drove the Humvee with the dozer attachment out to Front Street and lowered the blade so that it was only an inch off the ground. Lee watched from the sidewalk as Harper moved the vehicle in slow, broad strokes, the blade gathering up a tumble of pale bodies and pushing them towards a vacant lot at the northeastern corner of the intersection. Then Harper would put the vehicle in reverse and back slowly through the thickening blood, the tires slinging droplets of it down the sides of the vehicle. The thought of all that infected blood still gave Lee cause to worry, but over the last few months, several survivors—including Lee—had come into contact with infected blood and not contracted the plague. They’d determined that simple blood on skin contact didn’t contribute to infection.
After nearly an hour of back and forth, Harper had managed to clear Front Street of most of the bodies. The ones he couldn't get to—the ones that were huddled behind trees and in the corners of buildings—were picked up by hand and placed in the path of the dozer so he could push them into the growing pile. They mixed in pallets and pieces of wood and doused it all with diesel fuel and set it on fire with a road flare. Lee stood back away from the blaze and watched the acrid black smoke curl into the sky as Harper drove the Humvee-turned-dozer back into the parking lot behind the buildings.
The use of fuel was a shame, but they didn’t have the equipment to dig mass graves, and leaving rotting bodies out in the open was not only offensive to the senses, but a serious health hazard, even if they were uninfected. An expired human body became a petri dish for diseases of all types. On top of that, the rotting meat had been known to draw other infected into the area. It was best to dispose of them quickly.
Beside him, Father Jim looked down Main Street. "They'll see the smoke, you know."
Lee shrugged. "Nothing I can do about it, Jim."
"I know." He put a hand on Lee's shoulder. "But you know that asshole White is going to say something."
Lee smiled and looked shocked. "Father...such language."
Jim waved him off. "To call Professor Whit
e anything but an asshole would be to lie. And lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."
LaRouche joined them in the middle of the street, his cheek still bulging from tobacco.
Lee nodded to him. "How long you keep that shit in your mouth?"
LaRouche spat. "Gotta conserve."
Both Jim and Lee shrugged and nodded. It was a valid point.
From the north end of Main Street they could hear the rumble of a bus downshifting, muted by distance. Main Street dipped down into a slight grade and leveled out as it crossed over the Cape Fear River. Lee could see clearly in the winter air, and from the other side of the bridge, he watched the big white bus come into view, led by a blue, sixteen passenger van. Those two vehicles would contain all that was left of Dunn and Fuquay-Varina, along with all the worldly possessions that they had managed to carry out with them. Which wasn't much.
Lee remained standing in the intersection as the vehicles approached, his hands folded and resting on the buttstock of his slung rifle. The gray skies washed the windshields out to a pale reflection of nothing, and he could not see who was driving either vehicle. He supposed the Fuquay-Varina group would be in the van, as there were only twelve of them compared to Dunn's twenty.
LaRouche appeared, heralded by a ruddy stream of spit. He smiled at Lee. "Can't wait to hear what the great Professor White has to say to you this time."
Lee smiled wanly, but didn't feel much humor in it.
The van crested the hill and began to slow, the brakes on it squealing as it pulled to a stop in the middle of the intersection with the driver's side window rolled down. Sitting in the driver's seat was an aging man with longish salt-and-pepper hair, pulled back into a pony tail. He looked over the rims of thick glasses as though Lee were one of his pupils that had spoken out of turn in class.
Lee met his gaze and fought to keep his face neutral. "Mr. White."
Professor Tommy White of the once prestigious Chapel Hill University pursed his lips. The rumbling of the engines at idle filled the silence between the two men. Lee watched as the professor's eyes flicked to the burning pile of bodies. They stayed there and the man's face seemed to wilt. Then he just looked straight ahead again. Someone in the van began to weep loudly.
Lee sniffed and smelled charred flesh.
He pointed down Front Street. "Take your first left onto 8th Street. Entrance is on the left."
A teary-eyed girl of perhaps twenty years old appeared in the front of the van. She stared accusingly at Lee and bawled at him. "Why? Why'd you do it?"
"So you can be safe," Lee responded with thinly veiled annoyance.
The girl began to speak but Professor White held up his hand and shook his head. "It's pointless, Natalie. You won't convince him." White looked at Lee again. "We'll be going now."
Lee nodded. "Please do."
The van lurched forward quickly and made the right-hand turn onto Front Street, followed by the quick left turn onto 8th Street. Lee watched them go with a small shake of his head and kept telling himself you don't get to choose who you rescue. You don't get to choose...
The bus lumbered after the van. From the driver's window, Lee could see Old Man Hughes standing in the center aisle while a younger survivor from Dunn piloted the bus. The old man tossed Lee a salute and a nod of thanks.
"Hey," LaRouche put a hand on his shoulder. "At least someone appreciates us."
Lee made a chuckling sound that was born of frustration and anger. "It just never ends with these fuckers, does it?"
LaRouche flicked his hand dismissively. "Those fuckers have been living off of guys like me and you for centuries. They love their safety and security, but they'll never stop bitching about how we accomplish it." The sergeant shrugged. "Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it."
Lee nodded. Without further words, they began to walk towards the newly created Outpost Lillington. They had nearly reached the door to the pharmacy when Jeriah Wilson burst through. His eyes found Lee and he raised his hand to flag him down.
"What's up, Wilson?"
"Hey, Captain." Wilson looked confused, maybe a little curious. "Just got a call from Camp Ryder. Outpost Benson made contact with a guy, some survivor, and they're bringing him into Camp Ryder right now."
Lee's eyes narrowed. "Okay. And why are they calling for us?"
"Well, they're calling for you," Wilson corrected.
"Did they say why?"
"The guy says he's from Virginia." Wilson met Lee's gaze. "And he asked for you by name."
CHAPTER 2: THE HUB
Lee stalked to the Humvee as quickly as he could without showing his limp, ignoring the young college kids from Fuquay-Varina that sided with their old professor and grumbled about him as he passed. A few of the middle-aged survivors from Fuquay-Varina murmured their appreciation to Lee, and he nodded to them politely, but distractedly. Not everyone from Fuquay-Varina was opposed to him, but as a whole they went along with whatever Professor White said. Jeriah Wilson had been the one major exception.
At the big green truck, Lee ripped open the passenger door and snatched the handset from the cradle, keying it up before he even had it to his ear. "Captain Harden to Camp Ryder."
A click. Someone whose voice he didn't recognize came on. "This is Camp Ryder. Go ahead, Captain."
"Is there someone there asking for me?"
"Uh..." Shuffling, and then the radio clicked off for a brief moment. "Yeah, let me get Bus."
Lee waited quietly, leaning his elbow on the frame of the Humvee and chewing at the inside of his lip.
"Bus here."
Lee looked at the radio as though he might see Bus through it. "Is there some guy looking for me?"
"Yeah, two of our guys from Outpost Benson are bringing him to Camp Ryder." Bus sounded bewildered. "From what they described, the guy's on death's door. Dehydrated, starving, but they say he's wearing a vest, like a military one. Says his name is Jacob."
Lee racked his brain. "I don't know a Jacob."
"Well, he knows you."
"Was he armed?" Lee pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
"When they first found him, yes," Bus said. "But they said he wasn't hostile. Surrendered immediately and laid down his weapon. They said it was an M4, but they're also saying this guy doesn't seem like military at all."
Lee could think of plenty of people he knew in the military that didn't look the part. Not everyone was a lean, mean, fighting machine. Many of them worked behind the lines, and would never see a day of combat in their entire career.
Lee opened his eyes again. "Did he say why he's looking for me?"
"Um...damn, Lee." Bus huffed into the microphone. "I haven't talked to the guy yet. I just have second-hand information. I think they said he claimed to have information for you or something. Something about Virginia."
“Virginia?” Lee said incredulously. “What the hell do I need to know about Virginia?”
Bus keyed up again. "Look, I have no idea what this guy is about. We'll get him cleaned up and tended to. You just get back here so you can talk to him and figure out what's going on."
Lee licked his lips and felt them getting chapped in the cold, dry air. "Okay. We'll be enroute here shortly."
He hung up the handset and grabbed a bottle of water from the floor board and drank from it. The cold water ached as it filtered through the empty slot in his gums where he’d lost his tooth to a flying cafeteria chair. If the memory of it didn’t make him cringe, it might have been humorous.
He turned outwards and regarded the parking lot, encircled by brick buildings. It was now crowded, the two Humvees, the van and the bus taking up much of the space, but also with over thirty survivors carrying their personal items from the vehicles and placing them to the sides of the building. Everything they owned, wrapped up in a tattered old blanket, or stuffed in a ragged pack of some sort.
Looking out into all these people, he caught their sidelong glances at him and the expressions behind thos
e brief moments of eye contact varied greatly. The survivors from Dunn revered him as some sort of war hero. He and his team had rescued them after a hard-fought battle, and their appreciation showed. Then there were those from Fuquay-Varina, who Lee had simply stumbled across, and their perceptions of him were much less generous.
He resented them, though he tried hard not to let it bother him.
He resented their looks and their whispers.
He resented their simplistic worldview.
But most of all, he resented being judged. He resented that every action was worthy of intense scrutiny, and that some Monday-morning quarterback would always have an astounding hindsight solution for him, that somehow, he should have already known. "Weren't you trained for this?" they would ask him. And he would bite his tongue and try not to think about kicking their teeth in.
This was the war he was destined to fight.
A war where victory would be measured in how many he could save, regardless of their opinions. And though he may be weak in patience and politics, he was gifted in fighting and winning. And if winning meant putting up with some assholes who thought they knew how shit should be run, then so be it. That was just a pill he would have to swallow.
He finished what was left in the water bottle and dropped it in the front seat so he could refill it later. His thoughts turned back to the stranger from Virginia that somehow knew him. From across the parking lot he saw Harper and Jim standing together near the pharmacy entrance and eyeing him with open curiosity. He waved them over.
"What's going on?" Harper asked as he approached.
Lee adjusted his rifle sling so it was more comfortable across his shoulders. "I don't know. Some guy from Virginia is asking for me. By name, apparently. I don't know the guy, though." He craned his neck to survey all around him. "Where's LaRouche?"
Jim threw a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Front Street. "He and Jake are helping secure the doors and windows on the outside."
