by D. J. Molles
Jerry shook his head. “Won’t be necessary. We have enough of his students to stand around holding them and it should be enough to discourage a firefight.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
Greg regarded him for a brief moment, and in that time Jerry felt that the other man was scanning him up and down to determine whether he should throat-punch him or not. In the end he took another monstrous bite of food. He chewed, swallowed, and sucked at something in his teeth before speaking again. “How many will there be?”
“Five.” Jerry set his bowl on the ground, no longer interested. “You’ll take four. You’re gonna need to rough one of ‘em up before you let him go. Make it believable—it’s gotta convince Old Man Hughes that something happened. He’s my weak link in this whole thing. If he thinks something is suspicious, or doesn’t add up, he’ll say so to Captain Harden.”
“How believable do you want it?”
“Don’t break any bones or anything. Little black eye, cut lip. That should be enough.”
“I can do that. Where you want me to take the other four?”
“Hole ‘em up in the university somewhere.”
“Okay.” Greg scraped up the last of his meal. At least he seemed to be enjoying the stuff. “When?”
“The morning after tomorrow. They’ll meet you across the Cape Fear bridge, right outside of town.”
“Alright.” Greg smiled unpleasantly. “We’ll be there.”
CHAPTER 15: DIVERSION
Jacob stood, looking out over a fire at the thickening darkness in the woods beyond their protective fence. He posed a peculiar figure, skeletal, long-limbed, pale skinned. He wore boots and a pair of the olive drab pants he’d received from Lee, a tan pullover, and a matching watch-cap. They’d given him back Captain Mitchell’s M4, and he wore it in a single-point sling, hanging across his shallow chest.
If he didn’t look so damn weird, Harper thought he might look like a soldier.
“That is very strange,” Jacob said quietly and looked down into the fire.
No, he wasn’t a soldier, Harper decided. His eyes showed no hardness in them. Not like he’d seen in Lee. But there was something there, something that Harper couldn’t put a finger on, but he felt it was the reason why Jacob had been able to survive the trip from Virginia to North Carolina by himself.
Probingly, Bus said, “Thoughts?”
Jacob flexed his spidery fingers and began cracking each knuckle. “My thoughts are that it creates yet another disadvantage for us. Well…” he eyed the two men. “Primarily for Captain Harden. Besides the obvious issue of them appearing to be faster and stronger, there’s the added issue of their sleep cycle. Up until this point, I’ve seen packs work at night in the rural areas, and the hordes during the day in the urban areas. This seems to be a pack, preying on the hordes, and working in an urban area during the day.”
He grabbed a long stick and jabbed at the fire, his free hand cradling his rifle against his chest to keep it from swinging into the fire as he bent over. His train of thought became silent and drifted off into the night with the fog of his breath in the air.
Harper shuffled a little closer to the fire and held his hands out to warm them. “What about the adaptation? I mean, this is the first time we’ve seen this…”
Jacob held up a finger. “Not the first time.”
They waited for him to elaborate.
He held the stick in the fire until the edge became blackened. “And I wouldn’t call it ‘adaptation’ necessarily. Not in the sense that I think you mean it, as though they are evolving.” He held the tip of the stick up and stared at the smoking point. “No. Evolution can’t happen that fast. Not in the period of three months. Not even in three years. It takes generations for changes to occur. So to see what makes them different than the other infected, we have to look at normal, everyday differences.
“Chemicals in the body can play a part. For instance, some races produce more testosterone than others. Certain people are more capable of accessing instinctive memories. Some people are genetically predisposed towards violence. Physiologically, some people can eat certain things, including raw meat, and others cannot.” He smiled faintly. “We’re not all as homogenous as our previous popular culture would have us think.”
“So…” Harper closed his eyes and tried to think. “Some people are naturally better at being an infected. Is that what you’re saying?”
Jacob watched smoke rise from the stick. “Essentially…yes. Genetic predispositions. While they are not evolving in the sense of growing tails and cat’s eyes to see at night, it is an evolutionary principle that we are seeing take place here: Survival of the fittest.” He rammed the stick into the dirt and looked at the two men, his eyes glistening in the firelight. “You have to understand that civilization has been breeding the survival instinct out of humanity for generations upon generations. Survival is based upon aggression, but aggression is rooted out in modern society. If a modern human being is then infected with FURY and the bacteria eats through its frontal lobe, all it has left to rely upon are its animal instincts. The more intact those instincts are the more successful that human will be at surviving. The instinctively weak will become food for the instinctively strong.”
That hollow feeling was back in Harper’s stomach. “How do you figure out which ones are instinctively strong?”
Jacob scratched at the crook of his neck with a single, long finger. “Obviously a person that was athletic when they got infected will be more able to catch prey. Some people see better than others, some people hear better than others, and some people smell better than others. Then there will be people that exhibit several of these…survival attributes. If I’m correct, then what Captain Harden saw in the hunters was just the cream rising to the top, so to speak.”
“I don’t believe this,” Bus mumbled.
Harper tilted his head back a bit. “What area of science did you say you were in?”
Jacob smiled, patronizingly. “Microbiology on all my paperwork. But genetics is something of an interest. I’ve probably done enough research on my own time to constitute a doctorate.”
Harper clenched his jaw. “You can tell us all about the genetics, but you can’t tell us where the bacteria came from?”
Jacob’s expression soured a bit. “A large part of genetics is simply observing and understanding key characteristics, whereas microbiology requires a lab. It is, by definition, the study of things that can’t be seen with the naked eye.” He sniffed. “Hence the ‘micro’ in microbiology.”
Harper loaded a retort, but was stayed by Bus’s voice.
“So this isn’t going away.” Bus said. “They’re not just gonna…die out.”
Jacob looked at the big man with something akin to pity. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
***
Thirty miles away in Broadway, the discussion was much less detailed. Lee and his team asked the same questions, but mostly had no answers. A few people had some theories, but none worth seriously considering. In the end, the discussion of what Lee and LaRouche had witnessed petered out in about five minutes.
They ate cold MRE’s for dinner and bedded down for the night. There was no joking and no quiet laughter in the darkness, as there usually was. They were all serious and stone-faced, lost in thoughts of what had been, and what was still to come.
Jim had the last watch and he woke them two hours before dawn.
They ate a hasty breakfast and Lee took a stick and began to draw in a patch of dirt, using the light from a single gas lantern. What he produced was a reasonable facsimile of the intersection of Wicker Street and Steel Street. Lee used small stones to illustrate buildings, and shallow lines in the dirt to show roads. As he finished, his team gathered around him, some of them still eating or drinking, but all of them geared up and ready to go.
Lee knelt down on his haunches and pointed to each item and named it. “This is the intersection of Steel Street and Wicker Street in Sanfo
rd. The southeast corner is where the suspected den is located. It’s a tan-ish, sandstone-colored building. Two stories.” He moved his pointer. “On the northwestern corner is the building we’ll be taking. It’s an apartment building, and it’s about…” He looked to LaRouche. “What would you say? Five or six stories?”
“I counted six.”
“Six stories then.” Lee swept the pointer down along what was Steel Street. “We’re gonna come in from the north, since we didn’t see any activity in that section during recon. We’ll park the Humvees back a few blocks and hoof it in to the apartment building. Once we’re on the roof, we’ll overlook the southern-facing wall and set the traps right here.” He circled the street in front of the building.
“Uh…” One of the guys from Jeriah Wilson’s group popped his hand up. A short, red-headed man-boy that everyone had originally taken to calling Lucky Charms, and now just referred to as Lucky. “Isn’t that a little close to the den, Captain?”
“Yes.” Lee pointed to it. “I want it close, because as soon as we take out the infected, we’re going to go in and see what’s inside that den.”
The group grumbled, but no one spoke up.
Lee nodded with a small smile. “I know it sounds unnecessary, but from what we saw yesterday, it seems the infected are storing up food there and are very protective of it. I would like to see what’s inside.”
“Won’t the food be tainted?” Wilson looked disgusted at the prospect of eating food from an infected den.
Lee shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Things like canned goods should be fine. Besides, who knows what else they’re squirreling away up in there. It’s worth a look.”
LaRouche nodded. “It might also give us some insight into how the infected work.”
Lucky sneered with sarcasm. “What is it, a fucking safari?”
“It’s called intelligence,” Lee said evenly. “And you’re welcome to stand guard outside if you don’t want to go in.” He tapped the stick across his knee. “Does anyone else have any questions or concerns before we get going?”
Ten people shook their heads and remained silent.
Lee stood up and flexed his stiff ankle. “Then let’s get going.”
***
They moved silently along Horner Boulevard, a road that paralleled Steele Street. Their boots, even the ten pairs of them moving in tandem, made only the barest of whispers across the concrete, and their presence inside this small burg created no more stir than a moon-cast shadow sliding between the dark places between buildings.
Lee had never taught them how to move stealthily, whether in the cities or in the woods. By the time they’d joined his team, they had all learned everything there was to know about avoiding detection. The infected had taught them, and the thieves and the murderers that stalked the roads. Mistakes were paid for in blood and the lives of the ones that you loved, so you learned quickly, or you paid dearly.
No do-overs.
No second chances.
Though they lacked the overall discipline and knowledge of a military unit, when Lee considered the world around him and the social collapse they had all survived, and thought of it as a proving ground with an attrition rate of ninety-percent, it made these select few more qualified to survive and operate in this world than even the best the military had to offer.
In these moments of clarity, crouching silently at the corner of a red brick building, with an old blue mailbox to his left and a leathery, skeletal corpse to his right, when his eyes scanned down these dim streets and saw the shapeless shadows of his team moving in a tactical column, Lee felt an immense pride. Not the pride of the teacher looking at his students, but the privilege of a man who is astonished at the capabilities of the people he fights alongside.
Lee watched them for a half-second longer before turning his gaze south again. These moments were always fleeting in the midst of his work, like shapes in a cloud quickly swept away by the wind. The brief thought was swallowed by the night once more and he was refocused.
He stood at the corner of Horner Boulevard and Carthage Street. Ahead, LaRouche was on point this time and he was on the southern side of Carthage Street, near the alley that led to the rear of their target building. He moved to the mouth of the entrance, and put his shoulder to the corner, leaning out partially to get a view of the dark area behind the buildings.
Lee watched, his rifle resting on his knees. He waited for the signal for the rest of them to move up, but LaRouche seemed to be fixated on something. Impatiently, he wanted to call out to him, but he knew it would be unwise. You had to trust your point man. His whole purpose was to feel out the danger, so if he needed an extra minute, he got it.
Lee scanned east and west on Carthage Street, then north and south along Horner Boulevard. Behind him, the others crouched quietly, spaced out along the sidewalk with Wilson taking up the rear and dutifully facing the way they came.
No threats.
Lee turned back to LaRouche and found the sergeant looking at him.
LaRouche held up a hand and signaled them with a wave.
Lee reached behind him and tapped Jim, who was next in line. “Moving,” he whispered.
The tap and word was repeated all the way back as Lee stood and quietly made his way across the street to join LaRouche. Once at the corner, LaRouche gave him a palm to signal to slow up a little, then held a finger to his lips. Lee turned and held up a finger to everyone else. They moved to positions along the store fronts, glancing uncomfortably through the shattered windows at the dark interiors of the businesses.
Lee leaned in closer to LaRouche, who had refocused his attention down into the alley. They spoke in soft whispers.
“You got something?”
LaRouche nodded. He switched positions with Lee so that the captain was at the corner and leaning out slightly. He pointed to the end of the alley, where the small parking area terminated in the back of their target building, and the steel door they had jimmied the day before.
“You see it?” LaRouche asked. “Leaning up against the door?”
Lee squinted into the darkness.
Something was there, slumped in the shadows. His first impression was of a person, sitting with their back up against the door.
“Fuck,” Lee breathed. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“What’s it doing outside of the den?”
“Have you seen it move?”
“I think it’s asleep.”
“Too cold out here for it to be sleeping by itself, exposed.”
“You think it’s dead?”
He leaned out a little further from the corner and whispered to LaRouche, “Just get ready to take it out if it starts coming.”
“Okay.” LaRouche blinked. “What are you…?”
Lee waved one arm around the corner, and then braced for the reaction from the infected.
“Oh, Jesus.” LaRouche hunched a bit and tightened the grip on the rifle.
Down inside the alley, the slumped form did not stir.
Lee repeated the wave, twice. He garnered no response.
They both watched in silence, holding their breath. Eventually they turned and looked at each other. LaRouche raised his brow in question.
Lee looked back at the still figure. “What I wouldn’t do for a bow.”
Finding a compound bow, or a crossbow, had been a frequent topic of conversation, as they had encountered several situations where the ability to make a silent kill would have been nice. Lee had a suppressor, but contrary to popular belief, they did not “silence” the weapon, and would still be loud enough to wake the infected in the nearby den.
The other option was trying to sneak up and smash the skull with Lee’s crowbar. Historically, it was unsuccessful, simply because the damn things were impossible to sneak up on. Like cats, the smallest sound made them perk up and look around.
“Alright,” Lee ducked back in. “Stack up on me. Hold fire unless it starts coming at us.”
LaRouche b
lew a breath out. “You got it, Cap.”
The ten stacked up tight on each other and moved around the corner, hugging the wall to their right. The alley jogged down for about twenty yards, where the wall to their right ended and opened into a paved parking lot with the barest traces of paint still clinging to the concrete, framing the parking stalls that now sat vacant and purposeless.
Lee forced himself to remain hard on the target as he approached.
Whatever or whoever was slouched against that steel door to the apartment building still had yet to move.
He was now within ten yards of it.
In the crisp moonlight, Lee could see it was an older man, with wisps of gray hair still holding stubbornly to his liver-spotted scalp. He wore only a set of stained, white underwear and one black sock on his left foot. His limbs were sallow, his chest sunken in with a tuft of white hair poking up from the hollow of it. From its nose to the top of its chest, it was covered in dried blood.
What’s it doing out here? What’s it doing away from the den?
It definitely wasn’t one of the hunters. It was too old and too frail. Lee had seen these old and sick ones in the hordes. Occasionally, he’d seen one of them lying in the street, either dead or dying, or too sick and weak to move. It was disturbing to leave them lying on the ground, for in their last moments, they seemed less insane and aggressive, and more like the people they had once been.
Lee motioned for everyone to fan out. The single-file stack split up and LaRouche began moving to the right, while Lee remained stationary, covering the infected at the door. When they had the thing effectively surrounded, Lee glanced to his right and found the man next to him was Jake. Gone was his joker’s expression and twinkling eyes. Now his lips were pursed in concentration, his brow wrinkled up into a fierce glare of intensity.
“Relax,” Lee said, very quietly.
Jake nodded once.
“Move up with me.” Lee let his rifle sink down to his chest and quietly withdrew his KABAR from its sheath on his vest. “Stay hard on him, but don’t fire unless I tell you to. Okay?”
