by D. J. Molles
Two days ago, the beds had been filled with different people.
“Where’d the others go?” Angela asked.
“They were still sick, but on the uptick, so I sent them back home. These folks are worse off, and I only got three beds.” Jenny shook her head. “I’m running low on antibiotics, too. The sooner Lee can get to that bunker of his, the better. I don’t know how many more pneumonia cases I can treat with what I have here.”
“He’s working on it.”
“I know.” Jenny shook her head. “Anyways, I have to talk to this family and figure out if they have the same thing as everyone else or some wonderful new thing that’s going to kick our ass. You mind dosing the three beds? And I think Mr. Clark threw up a little bit ago…if you could clean his bucket out.”
Angela nodded. “I’m on it.”
She cared for the patients as best she knew how, giving them their prescribed doses of antibiotics and talking to them, trying to cheer them up, trying to take their minds off of their miserable circumstances. She felt pity for them, though she tried not to let it show on her face. They were sick here in this strange world, forever removed from the things and the people and the places they knew. They suffered through without any of the comfort that those things could bring.
As Angela finished dosing the last patient, Jenny concluded her talk with this family—which was the same talk she’d given the previous family, and the family before that, and would probably give the family that followed: Keep them fed, hydrated, and well rested. Not much else could be done.
It seemed that they might be getting a lull in business when Bus stalked into the medical trailer.
He nodded to Angela. “Glad you’re here. Jenny’s gonna need the help.” He turned to Jenny. “There’s a group of three refugees coming in from OP Benson.”
“Good Lord...” Jenny pulled the surgical mask from her face. “It never ends.”
Angela felt a measure of excitement. She’d never helped in the medical trailer when they were receiving newcomers. “What’s the big deal? Is one of them hurt?”
Jenny turned to her. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’re gonna give all of them a solid, full-body inspection. They either consent to it, or they can find another place to stay. We’re looking for bite marks, scratch marks, any wound that might look infected. We’re checking them for symptoms—not just for FURY, but anything else contagious. We have to figure out whether they need to be held in containment, or if they’re good to join the community.”
“Where’d they come from?” Angela asked.
Bus shrugged. “Out east, apparently. I didn’t get anything more specific.”
Angela and Jenny exchanged a glance.
“Okay,” Jenny stood up. “How long do we have?”
“Less than five,” Bus said. “Let me know when they’re cleared.”
“Alright.” Jenny heaved a great sigh. “Let’s get ready.”
Angela went to retrieve water and food—most of the refugees arrived dehydrated and starving. Jenny cleared an area and dragged out some partitions made of PVC pipes and bed sheets that would serve as a privacy screen when she inspected the refugees.
They had barely finished prepping before the three refugees arrived.
Outpost Benson used an old silver Toyota Camry to conduct their patrols, and it was in this that the newcomers were driven to Camp Ryder by two of the four men currently assigned to Benson. The two men from Benson rode up front, and the three refugees in the back. As they piled out, Angela sized them up from her vantage point at the mouth of the medical trailer.
A teenage boy and a slightly younger-looking girl that were obviously siblings stepped out and huddled together, uncomfortable, apprehensive, and clearly wary of the sentries that watched them with ported rifles. The teenagers were both dark haired and fair-skinned.
A middle-aged man exited the Toyota last. He had a shaggy head of wavy, gray hair and a beard that was playing catch-up, still dark along his jaw, though the chin was streaked with gray. He had dark eyes that immediately regarded his surroundings with suspicion. He hovered over the teenagers, his arms encircling them protectively.
Jenny didn’t wait for an invitation. She marched out confidently, even showed a little bit of attitude, as though the newcomers were just another chore in the middle of her busy day. Angela was unsure how much of this was genuine, and how much was a cultivated act to demonstrate her confidence to wary and untrusting patients.
Angela followed a few steps behind.
Jenny left her surgical mask off, and Angela figured there was a reason for that, so she removed hers. Perhaps wearing the surgical mask during introductions was a little too hi-nice-to-meet-you-can-I-have-your-kidneys?
Jenny extended a professional hand to the man and after a moment’s hesitation, he shook it warily. “I’m Jenny, I’m the nurse here at Camp Ryder. Has anyone already explained to you what we’re going to do?”
The man looked about, unsurely. “I don’t…I don’t think so.”
All three of them seemed to be in what Angela had heard Jenny and some of the others refer to as “the refugee daze.” After fighting and surviving by the skin of their teeth while on the road, and then finally finding a safe place, many of the refugees would seem to mentally shut down, as though they suspect that they were only sleepwalking in a dream.
“Okay.” Jenny pointed towards the medical trailer. “Come on, hon. What’s your name?”
“Kyle. This is Mike and Holly.”
Jenny smiled perfunctorily. “Nice to meet you guys. So, Kyle…we have food and water, which you’re all welcome to. Before we agree to let you stay, or to interact with any of the people here at Camp Ryder, including the traders you see over there—” She pointed to her left. “—we have to do a kind of physical screening. Make sure you don’t have anything catching that could hurt the rest of us. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes.”
“It is a full-body screening,” Jenny clarified. “So each of you will need to strip down completely. I know it’s uncomfortable, but it’s very necessary for our safety and yours. If you’re willing to do the screening and everything is good, then you’re welcome to stay, or trade, or move about as you wish. If you don’t want to subject yourself, then you know where the door is and we wish you the best of luck.”
They reached the medical trailer and Jenny turned to face Kyle again. “So?”
“Uh…” He looked down at the two kids. “Yes. I guess.”
“Okay then.”
Angela stood impressed. She would have thought that Jenny’s speech would have been met with more resistance, but clearly the all-business approach worked well for Jenny. It made her seem more credible and the situation less invasive and more of just another everyday occurrence.
Jenny pointed to a couple folding chairs against the wall. “Gentlemen, if you guys want to have a seat right there, I can get started with Holly here.” She gestured towards the recently-erected privacy screen. “Is that okay with you Holly? You’ll be right there on the other side of those sheets. Nobody will see you, but they’ll be right there if you need them, okay?”
Holly looked at Kyle and Mike, clearly afraid of leaving them, even just to go ten feet away.
Angela stepped in, treading a little lighter than Jenny. She knelt down just slightly—the girl was tall for her age, but still shorter than Angela—and she gave an encouraging smile, the same smile she gave Abby when she was trying to convince her to do something that she didn’t want to do. “It’s okay, Holly. I felt the same way when I first got here. But you know what? These are the good guys.”
Holly took some time considering it, though she relaxed visibly as she looked around. Maybe it was Angela’s tone, or Jenny’s business-like manner, or the people of Camp Ryder that walked by the entrance to the medical trailer and nodded and smiled and waved at them. Eventually she seemed to accept that these people were not out to get her.
“Okay,” she said in a mousy vo
ice.
Jenny took her by the hand and led her back behind the privacy screen to get started, while Kyle and Mike took their seats, their dirty hands clasped nervously in their laps like a couple of children waiting outside the principal’s office.
“Would either of you like some food or water?”
They looked at each other.
“Yes,” Kyle said. “He’s hungry. If you have some to spare.”
“Of course.” Angela retrieved the jug of water and two of the three bowls of oatmeal from the table where she’d placed them. She set the water jug between Mike and Kyle, and offered them both a bowl.
Kyle shook his head. “He can have mine. I’m not hungry.”
Mike snapped a look at him. “You have to eat, too.”
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t eaten…” Mike seemed to realize his protests were falling on deaf ears and turned his attention to Angela. “He hasn’t eaten in two days.”
“I’m fine.”
Angela forced herself to smile, even as her throat thickened. She gave Mike his bowl and pushed the other into Kyle’s hands. “Kyle, there’s enough for both of you to eat, okay? Please, just eat. I can get more.”
As if eating were an unbearable shame, Kyle stared down into the bowl.
The argument apparently settled, Mike attacked his bowl. Kyle followed, pacing himself as though to prove the point that he was, in fact, not that hungry.
“So,” Angela rubbed her hands together for warmth. “Where are you guys from?”
“Out east,” Kyle said, still intently focused on his oatmeal. “Little town called Snow Hill.”
“How long have you been on the road?”
“Couple weeks.”
“Oh.” Angela was surprised. “So you stayed in Snow Hill for a while?”
He took a big bite of oatmeal and looked at her quizzically. “Yeah. We had a farm. Did okay for ourselves. Why do you ask?”
Angela shrugged. “Just curious why you left.”
Kyle tapped his spoon against the side of the bowl and considered this for a moment. “The Followers. You ever hear of them?”
“Yes. Mostly just rumors.”
“Yeah, well.” Kyle turned back to his food. “Same here. But it was enough to scare their father, and he made me promise to get them out of there.”
Angela’s eyebrows went up. “So you’re not the children’s father?”
“He’s our uncle,” Mike said quietly.
Kyle eyed the teenager. “Yes. I’m their uncle.”
Angela leaned forward. “So what about The Followers scared you guys so much?”
“Pretty much everything, really.” Kyle glanced up at the privacy screen. “But I think…what they say about the women and girls…I think that’s what scared him the most.”
Angela shifted in her seat. “Kyle, this might sound a little silly…but what have you heard about The Followers?”
The man sucked at his teeth and regarded Angela with that same piercing stare, as though there were many questions rolling around inside his brain, but in the end it seemed that he shrugged them away and left them unspoken. “Marty Wiscoe. I heard he was some hellfire and brimstone televangelist before all this happened. Then when people started going crazy, he said it was God’s judgment on the world for being so wicked. Bunch of people joined his congregation right before things fell apart. Called themselves the Followers of the Rapture. Kind of a cult, I guess.”
Kyle took a heavy breath. “The rumors about them are pretty far-fetched. Some people say that Marty Wiscoe’s the antichrist. Some people say he’s going around preaching the gospel. Most of the rumors are that when he comes to town, his ‘congregation’ is more well-armed than you’d expect church folk to be. He makes all the men in town repent of their sins, and promise to follow God, the Bible, and him. If they agree, they become part of his ‘Lord’s Army.’ If they refuse, he hangs them on crosses.” Kyle shook his head. “But they also say that he forces people to eat their own children, that he’s growing horns, and that he can make people burst into flames with the power of his mind.”
Angela shook her head. “And what is it that they say about the women and girls?”
“They say he kidnaps all the girls of childbearing age. Gives them the great honor of bearing the next generation of his Lord’s Army. Keeps them as wives and…” he lowered his voice slightly. “…sex slaves for his men.”
Angela swallowed. “Sounds like a lot of rumors.”
“Yeah.” He set his bowl aside, empty. “There’s probably not much truth to it.”
Kyle and Mike exchanged an uncertain glance.
Neither looked convinced.
CHAPTER 13: SANFORD
Cold dawn had given way to a relatively warm day. Lee’s estimate was that it was around fifty degrees. Tendrils of white clouds streaked the sky like contrails, running east to west. The sun was between them now, and Lee enjoyed its momentary glow on his face.
They made it into Sanford, to the tallest building they could find. Some four story structure on the corner of Steele Street and Carthage Street that bore a sign of faded white paint across red brick that declared it the Sanford Business College. The doors and windows were already busted in, so Lee and LaRouche made their way to the stairs and went up to the roof.
Clearing the entire building would have taken too much time, but as they ascended the stairwell, they opened the door to each level and listened carefully. Their concern was with any human occupation, rather than infected. Except in the pursuit of prey, infected tended to stay on the ground. They heard nothing at each floor, and if the building was occupied, those inside were staying very quiet.
As they went, Lee thought about the lack of females, and the more he thought about it the more he began to insist to himself that they would see some today. Sanford had the biggest population of any city they’d cleared since Smithfield, so it stood to reason the horde would be larger, or there would be several hordes inside the city. It was just a numbers game.
Surely, there would be females here.
And when they saw the females, that knot in the cradle of his stomach would go away. Things would go back to their relative normalcy. The infected would be the same enemy, and he would continue to deal with them in the same ways. The lack of females in the last few cities would be a curiosity, but nothing more. There would be nothing new to worry about.
They reached the roof, dropped their packs, and settled in.
They waited.
Hours passed.
The hard roof and brick abutment became uncomfortable, and the two men shifted positions often. They sipped at water to stay hydrated, and occasionally ate a strip of deer jerky to stave off hunger. Frequently one of them would poke their head over the ledge to see if a horde had emerged from their den, but they knew before looking that there wasn’t—they would have been able to hear it or smell it.
The knot in Lee’s stomach cinched itself a little tighter.
Around midday, LaRouche rose to his knees, exposing his entire torso and let out an exasperated sigh. “What the fuck, man? This place is a goddamned ghost town.”
Lee wanted to tell him to settle down, that they would show up, but the truth was that LaRouche had taken the words right out of his mouth. He hitched one arm onto the abutment and pulled himself to his knees beside the sergeant. Together, they looked out over the city.
Across from them stood a bank, more shops, a diner. There were no cars parked alongside of the road, which was odd. Plenty of trash though. More than a few shell casings glittered on the concrete below them. Here and there, an empty magazine ejected from an M4. Trails of pock marks ran across brick walls like ellipses on an interrupted sentence.
Something violent had happened.
Nothing unusual.
There were a few bodies, decayed and beginning to skeletonize. Other than their quiet presence, the place was deserted.
“I dunno,” Lee said tightly.
�
�I feel like we usually have eyes on them by now.”
“Maybe they’re in another section of the city.”
“Could be.”
“Maybe we should move.” Lee raised one knee up and rested his elbow there.
LaRouche made a face and looked out at the city again. “Well, we’ve already wasted half the day.”
Lee nodded. “I say we move south toward the other end of town, see if we can catch sight of the horde.”
“If there is one.”
“Why wouldn’t there be?”
“I don’t know.” LaRouche shrugged, and said no more.
Lee stood and shouldered his pack. “There’ll be a horde.”
Almost as though he hoped for it.
On his feet, he could see further over the abutment to the south end of town. Steel Street stretched out and continued on through several intersections. He wished they could cut across the tops of the buildings. Roofs had become a sort of safety zone for them. The ground was where the danger was.
Lee moved towards the door to the stairwell. “Let’s get going.”
“Hold up…”
Lee glanced behind him, expecting to see LaRouche dawdling with his pack, but instead the man was standing, his neck extended out, focused intensely on something to the south, tense like a bird dog with its eyes on a quail. Lee instinctively tried to follow LaRouche’s gaze, but there was so much to see from this vantage point he had no idea what the sergeant was looking at.
“What is it?”
LaRouche waved a hand and knelt. “Get down…come here.”
Lee watched him duck-walk quickly to the southern-facing abutment and peer over. Lee followed closely behind, settling to his knees, but looking at LaRouche, rather than over the abutment. “What is it? What do you see?”
“I can’t tell,” LaRouche whispered. “Way down there at the intersection.”
Lee rose slowly so he could just see over the abutment to the intersection south of them. “What am I looking for?”
