by D. J. Molles
Bus’s eyes widened a bit. “Who’s this?”
Lee looked between Bus and Harper. “Please, just give me a minute so I only have to explain things once to the both of you.”
Bus nodded. “Okay.”
Lee pushed Brian into the hands of the three volunteers. “Find a shipping container for him and lock it up tight.”
“Wait!” Brian protested, twisting his still-blindfolded face around. “Don’t pass me off to these people, Lee! You have no idea what you’re doing!”
“Get him out of here.”
Two of the volunteers, both younger men, took hold of Brian and dragged him off.
Lee reached out and put a hand on the shoulders of Bus and Harper, simultaneously pulling them slightly closer as though to confide a secret to them, and pushing them towards the Camp Ryder building as he started to walk. “Let’s talk.”
***
The three men stood in a tight circle inside the office. Bus leaned back against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. Harper stood in a similar repose, but with one hand worrying ceaselessly at where his beard extended down onto his neck. Lee stood as the third point in the triangle, his rifle leaning against the chair behind him and his unbuckled tactical vest providing a support for his hands.
He told them what had happened over the course of the past few days, and left nothing out. From the sniper that killed Jake, to the ambush as they neared the bunker, to the conversation he’d had with the dying man as he bled out on the forest floor, Lee recounted everything in detail, his voice rote and emotionless. He ended with his discovery of Brian Tomlin, and his suspicions about him.
Lee pursed his lips. “The two men sent to kill me knew which building we were going to use in Sanford, and set a trap for us there. And then they clearly knew what route we were going to take to get to the bunker—which no one should know.” He took a long, deep breath. “I personally believe that whoever is controlling them is someone with intimate knowledge of the operation. And that’s where Brian Tomlin comes in.”
Harper looked confused. “The guy we captured?”
Lee nodded.
“Why would he…” Harper trailed off, and Lee could see the dots connecting in his head and revealing an unpleasant picture. The older man’s eyes fell down to the floor and his face tensed. “Sonofabitch. That’s how you know him.”
Bus stuck his head out and opened his arms. “Am I missing something here?”
“Brian Tomlin,” Lee said quietly. “Is Captain Brian Tomlin. The coordinator for South Carolina.”
Bus stood frozen in place for a moment, his eyelids blinking rapidly as though he were struggling to process the information he was receiving. Gradually, his arms retreated back to his sides and his blinking slowed again.
“Well, shit,” he muttered.
Lee shifted, turning around and slowly stripping his vest from his shoulders and draped it over the back of the chair where his rifle leaned and turned back to the other two men, his eyes on Harper. “That’s why I treated him like I did.”
“Yeah.” Harper touched his forehead. “I see.”
“He claims to be on my side, but right now, he’s suspect number one.” Lee sat down. “And that’s my bit of news.”
“Jesus.” Bus looked briefly overwhelmed. “I’m afraid to ask, Harper…but do you have something for me as well?”
Harper suddenly looked troubled as he was forced to switch gears from one worry to the next. “Uh…yes. It’s about Professor White and Lillington.” He paused. “It sounds like a group of his students went missing—well, actually, they were kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?” Bus looked startled.
“Yeah,” Harper continued. “Five of them were out scavenging along the edges of the town and apparently a group of guys in an old panel van pulled up and ordered them all on the ground, kidnapped four of them, but one of them fought and got away. They beat the fuck out of him, though.”
Bus’s expression turned from surprise to suspicion. “Why didn’t they call this in to us?”
Harper shook his head. “White said some bullshit about not wanting to make it public. He was afraid it was going to start a rash of vigilantism.”
Bus rolled his eyes. “That guy is unbelievable.”
“Yeah, well…all of that to say, White’s requesting guns now.”
It was Lee’s turn to look surprised. “Guns?”
“Yeah.” Harper shoved his hands in his jacket pocket. “I thought it was weird, but then again, I guess he’s just worried about safety. And apparently, he doesn’t want you or any of our people to get involved with trying to track down the bad guys and get the kids back. He says he’ll handle it on his own, if we give him the tools.”
Lee supposed this would have been much more ironic in the old world, but he supposed now it was just a sad circumstance. If White and his students hadn’t been idiots and rejected the firearms he tried to give them initially to protect themselves, they would not be in this situation, and those four others would be safe inside the walls with an unpleasant war story to tell around the fire.
Lee leaned his elbows onto his knees. “Alright. I guess we can give him some guns.”
Harper crossed his arms. “I guess that brings us to the topic of the mission.”
“Yes,” Bus said. “When are you planning on leaving?”
“Tomorrow, if possible. The day after at the latest.” Lee looked at Harper as he said this. “I plan to meet with my entire team—the volunteers as well, and make sure everyone has everything in order before we go. If we can leave before noon tomorrow, we’ll do it. If not, we’ll wait until the following morning. But we need to get a move on. Who knows how close those things are to crossing into North Carolina, or if they’re already here.”
Bus nodded. “Just let me know, Captain. If you need the extra day to relax…”
Lee grimaced. “That would be great, but I don’t think we have the time to relax. Every day we have to wait drives me nuts. I keep wondering how many of them are migrating south into the state, crossing that river, every day.”
“It might not be any,” Bus pointed out. “Jacob said he didn’t expect them to cross in the state until late this month.”
“Even if that’s the earliest they’ll make their way down here, we’re still behind the eight ball.” Lee looked up at the map on the wall. “It’s going to take time to blow those bridges and set up in Eden. And that’s all assuming that Jacob’s estimation is correct. They could be knocking on our doorstep next week, or they might all die before they even reach the river. We just don’t know.”
“I agree,” Harper looked stern. “We can’t play the odds on this one. We need to assume the worst.”
Lee stood up, favoring his ankle slightly. “I need you to gather everyone up after dinner. We’ll meet here.” He looked around the room. “It’ll be tight, but it’s better than standing outside in the cold.”
“Alright. Where are you going to be?”
Lee took up his rifle. “I’m going to have a talk with Captain Tomlin.”
CHAPTER 24: OLD FRIENDS…
It had been a decent day of scavenging for Gregg and Arnie. They’d left in the morning when the sun was positively over the horizon and they knew the packs would be bedded down. Now as the afternoon waned into evening, they hit the road, aiming to be back at Camp Ryder before dusk.
For the last week they had been working the Cedar Cove subdivision off of Highway 210. It was a few streets of approximately eighty middle-income houses sitting on half-acre plots of land. It didn’t look like anything special, but the houses were still curiously full. The only things obviously missing were some clothes, cash, and a few family photos, absent from conspicuous blank spots on the walls.
Several of the houses at the front of the neighborhood had suffered from looters, back in the days when people were still grabbing big-screen TVs and video game consoles. One of them was fire-gutted, with a collapsed roof. But the houses nestled
back into the neighborhood’s cul-de-sacs were surprisingly untouched.
Today they’d been able to clear ten of those houses, Arnie pulling guard in the front while Gregg worked each house over meticulously, dragging along an old military-surplus duffel that grew heavier with each house until it weighed so much that Gregg could hardly lift it into the hatchback of Arnie’s Geo.
When he’d first started scavenging, he would take nearly everything from a house. But experience came with a little more discretion, and he chose to take only the items that were in high demand, and simply make mental notes of where everything else was, in case someone specifically requested those items later.
The Big Three, as he called them, were food, water, and clothing.
A close fourth was what he considered “drug store items,” which included everything from medicines to toiletries. As a rule, to prevent him from taking up real-estate in his duffel with items that were low on the totem pole, he only took with him whatever drug store items he could fit in the pockets of his coat. Usually a couple bars of soap and some medications.
The medications were a growing priority for Gregg, but not the kind that Jenny and Doc Hamilton could use. More and more people were trading up pretty valuable items to get their hands on anti-depressants, pain medications, and any other mood-altering drug to make their lives in this savage landscape feel less horrible.
Gregg allocated his deepest coat pocket to those little orange bottles.
So Gregg had a methodology for scavenging these houses.
First, you had to sweep it for threats—make sure nothing was hiding in the dark closets or under beds, ready to take a chunk out of you when you had your back turned. Then it was straight to the kitchen and pantry. Take everything that hasn’t been expired for more than a year. Off to the closets and dressers. Take all the socks, and all the underwear. Hooded sweatshirts and micro fleece pullovers, if they were size large or above. Any pants of sufficiently sturdy construction—never touch the designer brands. Check if there are any solidly-made boots. Finish up with a trip to the bathroom for medications, first-aid supplies, and bars of soap. Before leaving, check under the bed, between the mattresses, in the nightstand, and in the closets for guns or ammunition. If there’s a garage, take note of what’s inside so you can maybe come back through for it later. If there are cars, siphon the tanks.
So with the back of the Geo laden with a good haul of food, clothing, and even a few gallons of gasoline, they piled in with maybe an hour and a half to go before dusk and one more errand to run before returning to Camp Ryder.
Arnie drove, while Gregg stood up in the backseat with his Remington 870.
“I don’t get why Jerry gives a shit about these fuckers,” Arnie griped.
Gregg could just barely hear him over the sound of the wind rushing by his ears, but he shrugged and hollered back, “You know how he is. Fostering goodwill and shit like that.”
“Whatever.”
That concluded the conversation.
Gregg kept an eye on the time, and the distance from the sun to the western horizon.
They arrived at Leslie-Campbell University with about 45 minutes to spare.
Gregg hopped down out of the Geo and opened the duffel up, retrieving from it several food items, along with a couple of thick blankets. He used the blankets to wrap up the canned goods and a sleeve of sandwich cookies—a little care-package for the kids in the dormitory.
Gregg resented having to give away what he’d scavenged, especially to the brats from Fuquay-Varina, but he had already told Jerry he would do it. Besides, he supposed the kids had earned a little food and some warm blankets, going through all of this bullshit on Jerry’s request. Who knew how long they would have to stay holed up in the dormitory?
They had their own motivations, of course.
Namely, complete hatred of Captain Harden.
He supposed that got them through some of the cold nights.
“You want me to come with you?” Arnie asked, still sitting in the driver’s seat.
Gregg shook his head and hauled the satchel of goods up over his shoulder. “Nah. Sit here and guard our shit.”
One arm holding the satchel, the other his shotgun, Gregg made for the four-story dorms to his right. The four kids from White’s group that had pretended to be kidnapped would be up on the top floor, where the infected wouldn’t wander and other scavengers or raiders generally wouldn’t venture—there just wasn’t a lot of useable loot in a college dorm.
The sidewalk cut through a gently sloping lawn, a few stately oak trees framing it like a gateway. The once-manicured lawn was now an uneven and patchy mess of overgrown clumps of brown fescue and dead weeds as tall as sapling trees. Through the oak trees and up to the red brick building, the bushes surrounding the base of it were wildly untrimmed, their carefully shaped branches just barely visible beyond a screen of new-growth offshoots, slightly lighter in color.
Gregg rounded one of these bushes and then stopped.
A cold wind pressed at his back.
The dormitory door stood open.
Not so unusual, but for the bloody smear across it.
Gregg dropped the satchel. It made a muted metallic clank as it hit the concrete. He shouldered his shotgun and stepped back, away from the door, and then to his right, so that he was back behind the overgrown bushes.
The sound of a car door opening.
Gregg glanced back and saw Arnie running across the waist-high lawn, his old hunting rifle in-hand. They knew better than to call out to each other, but when Arnie had jogged up within a few feet of Gregg, he took a gulp of air and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Blood on the door.”
Arnie raised his rifle up.
The two men edged towards the door.
Taking a longer moment to look at it this time, Gregg noticed blood on the floor of the entryway as well. A few drops and then a long, coagulated smear that zigzagged across the tile floors and disappeared into the dark hall. Far down that hallway, at the opposite end, a single window let in pale gray light and illuminated a small area in its glow, but everything between them and that window remained invisible in its shadow.
“Should we go in?” Arnie asked.
“I think we’re gonna have to.”
“Got your flashlight?”
Gregg fished the little yellow light out of the back pocket of his jeans and flicked it on. The light was a mottled circle that probed dully at the heavy shadows, barely lighting their way. Slowly, the two men entered the dormitory, the candle-like orb of light guiding them along the trail of blood on the floor like wheels on a track.
It terminated in a door left ajar.
The placard to the right of the door read STAIRS.
Gregg pushed the door open with the barrel of his shotgun, holding the pump action with the little flashlight pinched between his fingers. The door swung open and a draft of rank air hit them both, causing throats to clamp shut and eyes to water.
“Jesus Christ…” Arnie stepped back, fanning a hand in front of his face.
Gregg handled it more stoically and pushed into the stairwell.
It was not the smell of rot, but the smell of bowels spilled.
In the corner of the bottom landing lay the top-half of a body. The head was largely untouched, dark brown hair, a young man’s face, grotesquely serene atop its masticated corpse, reminding Gregg of an obviously photo-shopped picture. Sharp ribs standing out from a spine stripped of meat. The organs scattered across the floor as though they’d been dug out and indiscriminately flung in random directions.
“Is that…?” Arnie choked.
“Yeah,” Gregg turned away from it. “It’s one of the kids.”
“Where are his legs?”
“I’m guessing that’s where the blood trail came from.” Gregg started up the stairs. “Whatever took him down dragged the other half of him off somewhere.”
At the fourth floor, they found a single dorm room with a
splintered door. A crowd of bloody footprints stampeded back and forth down the hallway, but centered there at the door that barely hung onto its hinges. Inside, the walls were red, like some hellish brothel, and textured with flesh. It stank of copper coins and sewers. It was too difficult to determine what parts belonged to who, so they counted heads and came up with three.
Arnie shook visibly. “I thought the infected didn’t like to leave the ground floor.”
Gregg shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“What are we gonna tell Professor White?”
Gregg looked at his partner. “We’re not gonna tell him shit.”
***
The shipping container was located back behind the Camp Ryder building and had become something of a storage shed for unused mechanical parts and other pieces of junk that people didn’t want to throw away, fearing it would be needed in the future. Cracked radiators, empty oxygen tanks, old hub caps—they wasted nothing, but what they couldn’t find a use for eventually found its place inside this out-of-the-way container.
Two of the volunteers that had carted Captain Tomlin away still stood at the closed doors of the shipping container, a lock and chain around the bottom. These were new additions to the box.
Lee carried with him an unlit LED lantern, though the sky was not yet completely dark. He set this at his feet and eyed the padlock. “You got the keys to that thing?”
One of the volunteers responded by stretching out his hand, a single key grasped delicately between his thumb and forefinger.
“Is he still restrained?”
The man with the key nodded. “We put him in there exactly how you gave him to us.”
Captain Tomlin had all the same training that Lee did. And off the top of his head, Lee figured there were a dozen ways he could have gotten free from zip-tie bindings if he were left alone like Tomlin. There were a lot of sharp metallic edges in that shipping container. All it would take was some patience the willingness to get cut a few times.
Lee bladed his stance towards the door, his rifle ported against his chest. “You mind pulling those doors open for me? Just in case.”
