by D. J. Molles
He understood all of these things, but suddenly the concept seemed repugnant to him.
He’d lived his entire military career with the attitude of, “I may not like it, but if the CIC says go to Bumfuck, Iraq, I go to Bumfuck, Iraq, and there’s really no use overthinking it.” The politics and the reasons were immaterial to him, and generally too convoluted to truly understand anyway.
Now, several months and a world-altering societal collapse later, after putting himself on the line, and ordering others to do the same, and losing so many of them, losing such a large part of himself, and fighting for every goddamned inch, for every meal, for every day of life, the idea of simply handing the reigns over to someone else seemed ridiculous.
Lee worked moisture into his mouth. “So Abe’s no longer calling the shots.”
“No.” Tomlin’s voice reflected disgust. “For the last month, he’s been handing down orders from the secretary of state, who has completely hijacked Project Hometown. He’s forcing the coordinators to ship the resources in their bunkers out to the interior states. After Mitchell was killed, they decided that everything east of the Appalachians and north of the gulf region was a total loss. And they’re close to making the same call with the west coast.”
Lee felt his heart rate rising. “So why send people in to kill me?”
Tomlin spoke with exasperation: “Because you’re just a waste of resources to them, Lee! Abe’s been keeping tabs on you. He knows you emptied out one of your bunkers, and you just started on another. But you’re out of contact for them, and you’re serving a state that they’ve decided they don’t want saved.” Tomlin shook his head as though he couldn’t comprehend why Lee wasn’t following. “Don’t you get it? They want you gone so you’re not wasting what’s in the bunkers. If the infected ever die out along the east coast, they want to be able to come back in, and they want to be able to use your bunkers to resupply.”
“They can’t open the bunkers if I’m dead!”
Tomlin shook his head slowly, side to side. “Not true, Lee. Abe was issued a master code. He can hand it out to whoever he wants, and if they put it in their GPS instead of the individual code, they can access whatever bunker they want.” He paused for a long time, as though waiting for Lee to ask a question, but Lee only stood there, shell-shocked into silence.
“Mitchell was one of the last northeastern states. The only ones that survived were Pennsylvania and New York, only because they were able to get onto the other side of the Appalachians. They took heavy losses when they did.”
“Chris and Lucas…” Lee said, picturing their faces.
“Yes. They had to abandon portions of their states. And the others—Mark from Delaware, James from Maryland, Ian from New Jersey—we lost contact with all of them within the first month. So when Acting President Briggs began running things, and then Mitchell disappeared, Abe contacted me and ordered me to discontinue my operations in South Carolina, find you, kill you, and retreat across the Appalachians.”
In the strange midnight light of the room, Lee could see the tears in Tomlin’s eyes. “I had people, Lee. Women and children. Entire fucking families.” His face suddenly contorted. “And I left them behind. I left them with supplies running low and the weather getting cold. And I came up here, and I watched you, I watched you putting everything you had into this, I watched you taking the people and keeping them safe…doing what you were supposed to do.” He blinked to clear his eyes. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you.”
Overwhelmed, Lee slumped against the wall and buried his face into his hands, as though the barrier of them would block out any other unpleasant things trying to force their way into his mind. His dream just prior to waking still clung to him like strands of spider silk. The distinctness of the threat, the inevitability of demise. But also of the nearness of his father and the determination and the strength he drew from it.
Tomlin’s voice hijacked his train of thoughts. “It’s bigger than my personal convictions.”
Muffled by his palms, Lee said, “How’s that?”
“I told you about the master code, but there was something else. Apparently, our GPS devices can link to each other and be controlled remotely. With the proper codes, one can be slaved to another. When Abe briefed us before we left our bunkers, he had us all link our devices.” Tomlin looked down at his hands. “When they made the decision to abandon the east coast, he remotely accessed my device and changed the security restrictions so that I couldn’t even access my bunkers if I wanted to.”
Lee removed his hands from his face.
Tomlin was staring at him with bald intensity.
“They couldn’t slave my device,” Lee said, the voice of someone coming to a severe and unwelcome realization. “Because I wasn’t there to link mine with everyone else. I’m the only one who can still freely access their bunkers.”
Tomlin nodded. “I need your help, Lee.”
“Why should I help you?”
Tomlin’s voice rose. “Because it’s not right. They can’t just decide who lives and dies, who gets rescued and who gets left behind! We were given a fucking job, and I’m not done doing mine, and you’re not done doing yours.” Tomlin pointed to the ground with his index finger. “We’re still here! North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia are still here. We haven’t been overrun yet. Why give up when we’ve got a plan to stop it?”
Lee looked at him sharply. “You mean I have a plan to stop it.”
“We can help each other here, Lee.”
Lee looked at the other man for a long time. He drew his knees up and leaned his elbows on them. The question was whether he could trust Captain Tomlin or not. To that question, he had to ask himself, has he done anything to hurt you? And of course the answer would be ‘no’. Tomlin may have come here with the intention to harm him, under misinformation and a misguided sense of duty, but he hadn’t carried it out.
Then, of course, the next question was, has he done anything to earn your trust?
Well, he didn’t kill me when he had the chance.
Lee cleared his throat. “What do you know about my plan?”
***
They spoke for a long time. Lee explained his plan in detail, because, in his mind, he didn’t have much of a choice. Sometimes when the stakes were high, you had to make a bet that you wouldn’t normally make. In this situation, Lee just had to bet that Tomlin was on their side. He also told Tomlin what Jacob had briefed them on when he’d first come to Camp Ryder, and the threat that they faced in the coming months.
As they talked, Lee found that they were slipping easily back into sync with each other, the familiar rhythms of an old friendship that fit you like a well-worn pair of boots. The coordinators were a family, and they all knew each other well. Lee had been closest to Abe Darabie, but he’d naturally founded friendships with Tomlin and Mitchell, simply because they were both within a couple hours of him.
Then, with everything that had happened the previous day, with the uniformed soldiers trying to kill him, and Tomlin suddenly surfacing, Lee had struggled to reconcile what he was witnessing with what he knew about these men. Particularly Tomlin. Now, in the dim glow of a lantern, standing shoulder-to-shoulder and addressing the map that hung on the wall of the office, Lee felt an immense relief, like hot water relaxing his muscles and releasing the tension in him.
Tomlin was still a friend.
Which left the question of Abe Darabie, who was clearly having his hand forced by the acting president…
Tomlin turned and looked at Lee, very serious. “Lee, you need to decide right now whether or not you recognize the authority of Secretary of State Briggs as Acting President of the United States. It’s a tough question to resolve, but don’t wait until you’re backed into a corner to figure it out.”
He seemed to have read Lee’s mind. “What have you decided?”
“I decided that I don’t recognize the authority of the secretary of state, because I have no proof that th
e presidential successors preceding him are indeed dead. All we have is his word, which is worth zilch to me right now. Until it’s proven otherwise, in my mind, the president is still commander-in-chief, and I will abide by the last orders that I know came from him—rescue and rebuild. Not leave the eastern seaboard for the infected.”
Lee smiled. “I second that.”
From inside the Camp Ryder building, Lee heard a door slam—what sounded like the front double doors. Then came the pounding of footsteps on metal risers.
“What time is it?” Lee asked, glancing over to the small window in the office. The window was clouded with condensation, but Lee could see it was still dark outside.
Tomlin cringed. “This is probably going to be about me.”
The door to the office burst open and there was a man there, one of the sentries, standing there with his rifle at the ready. He took a moment to process what he was seeing, and his body went rigid. He swung his rifle in the general direction of Tomlin, but didn’t aim.
“Uh, Captain?”
“Lower that rifle for me.” Lee gestured with his hand.
The man lowered his rifle, but pointed with his free hand. “He escaped! He got away!”
Lee felt a smile on his lips. “Clearly.”
The sentry seemed to realize that Lee and Tomlin were in no life and death struggle, and that there was a little bit of amusement in their eyes as they looked at him. His face flushed and his eyes searched the ground. “I’m sorry, Captain…I fell asleep.”
Lee shrugged. “Well, luckily, this time no one got hurt. In the future, if you feel like you’re too exhausted to perform your duties, try and find someone to replace you. It’s almost freezing temperatures out there. If you’re dozing off when it’s that cold, you probably need to get more sleep.”
The sentry relaxed a bit. “I’m sorry.”
Lee waved him off, and the man disappeared through the door, his shoulders slumped slightly. Looking to Tomlin, Lee raised an eyebrow. “How did you get out of a locked shipping container?”
Tomlin smiled sheepishly. “One of the back corners is almost completely rusted through. A little prying with a metal pipe and I was able to squeeze out.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “He must really have been asleep not to hear that shit.”
“Guess we won’t be using that container for a holding cell anymore.” Lee turned his attention back to the map. “Listen…Brian…I’m sorry for all of that.”
Tomlin considered that for a long time. “We’re in desperate times, Lee. I’d’ve done the same damn thing if I were in your position. There’s no need to apologize for taking precautions.”
Lee’s lips tightened. “It’s good to have you.”
Tomlin looked at the floor. “Yeah.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to go back?”
“To South Carolina?”
“Yeah.”
“I dunno. Probably not to the same people. I left them without explanation. There one day, and gone the next.” Tomlin smiled grimly. “No, all I can do for them now is help you stem the tide. Maybe once all this is over, and I can explain why I left…” He trailed off.
“Once all of this is over?” Lee said with a chuckle.
“Yeah. Why? You don’t think it’s going to be over?”
“I’m sure it will one day. But it’s going to be a long damn time.”
***
LaRouche woke up slowly from a poor night’s sleep. He’d slept for periods of perhaps an hour, only to wake up with strange dreams that flew away from the grasp of his recollection and left him feeling on edge. The last time he awoke it was past 3 a.m. and he figured there was no purpose in continuing to try to sleep. He felt more exhausted each time he woke. The nervousness of the coming day would not allow him to rest tonight, so he would wait, and perhaps tomorrow, when they were on the road and the mission was in progress, he would sleep better.
He lay in his bed—a few thick blankets lain atop cardboard—for a long time, staring at the ceiling of his shanty and watching the tiny space between the two sections of plywood that comprised his roof shift from black into deep hues of blue. Cold air surrounded him and the air from his lungs turned to fog and drifted up to the crack in the ceiling. He waited for the sounds of other people, but it was still too early and time was sluggish in the cold, pre-dawn hours.
He was only growing more impatient.
“Fuck it,” he mumbled and threw the covers off.
He was still mostly dressed. It was just too damn cold at nights to strip down, so the only thing missing was his boots. He slipped them on and shuffled his feet around in them, trying to impart his body heat to the cold leather interior by creating some friction. He left them unlaced and grabbed his rifle. It was too early in the morning for his tactical vest.
Too early for rifles, for that matter.
He pushed away the multiple layers of blankets and one tarp that served as his door. He probably had more blankets in his shanty than most, and he rarely left a blanket behind when he found it. They were cushion, warmth, and insulation. LaRouche had never realized how essential and how useful a blanket could be.
Outside his shanty, he looked up at the sky and found stars staring down at him, clear and crystalline. Dawn was still an hour away, and to the untrained eye, the sky was still dark. But a person that lies awake in the cold nights can see even the slightest change in the color of the sky.
Gonna be a clear day. Maybe even a little warm.
He meandered between shanties full of sleeping families and couples. People that had someone else to cling to in the night. Someone to give them warmth and comfort. It struck him that modern society had robbed something from people when their lives and beds were so comfortable that they preferred to sleep alone. Man wasn’t meant to spend these nights by himself. The pleasure of human company in these hard times overcame any number of personality quirks that would have become “deal breakers” in the old world.
We got so picky, he thought to himself. My steak’s not cooked right, and my bed doesn’t align my spine properly, and my wife just put on some weight.
Who gives a fuck?
LaRouche could recall any number of women that he’d dated, only to delete them from his phone and avoid them at all costs because their laugh was weird, or she left her wet towel on the bathroom floor, or she had too many cats.
Now he’d give anything to have one of those women in his bed at night, warm and soft, and maybe just maybe, he’d sleep the whole night through.
Like the rest of these fuckers. LaRouche made a face as he passed a shanty that was rumbling with someone’s loud snoring. How did you sleep that deeply when it was almost thirty degrees out? Unbelievable.
He reached the large circle of ash ringed with stones. He knelt down over the rocks and held his hand close above the ashes. There was still some heat there. He stepped over to a large and mysterious mound that sat a few yards from the fire pit, covered by a tarp. He lifted the tarp and tossed it back halfway, revealing a stack of wood and kindling.
God bless all the people that did the chores around here. The hunting and the gathering and the splitting wood for fires. Of course, LaRouche had his own job to do and it came with its own unique set of challenges, but not once had he gone to this stack of wood and found it depleted.
He grabbed up an armload of kindling and two split logs and carried them to the side of the fire. He brushed the ashes away and revealed the glowing embers underneath. He placed the kindling over this patch of coals and blew on it steadily until the embers began to blaze hotly and the kindling caught. Slowly but surely, he nursed the fire back to life.
He stared into the flames for a long time, feeling the heat on his face as the fire began to envelop the split logs, the splinters burning and curling back on themselves, the bark beginning to steam and bubble as what little moisture was left inside of it boiled. In those long, hypnotic moments, his mind left him and travelled to a kitchen with white cabinets and gray gr
anite countertops and the smell of strong coffee. His parent’s house in Tennessee. The bright, early morning light seeping through the bay windows of the breakfast nook. The way the sun felt warm coming through the windows, but you could look outside and see the frost shimmering on everything. The way the house felt almost too hot when you came in from the outside, the vents kicking out air that smelled of home, a box of a dozen fresh donuts in his hand. That was breakfast, and would be the only thing they ate until Thanksgiving dinner in the early afternoon. A dozen donuts to fuel a day of turkey frying, cigar smoking, and backyard football.
He thought of their faces. His mother, his father, his younger brother. Faces that would gather around the island and look at each other with that tired affection of waking up to a full house of long-lost family, in town for the holidays. Tired, but comfortable in their belonging.
He missed them, but he tried not to think about them, because he knew they were probably dead. It felt cold of him to think it, but he wouldn’t fool himself into a false hope. The LaRouche family was nothing if not pragmatic, and they would not want him to labor under the assumption that they had survived against all odds. They’d lived just outside of Nashville, and likely hadn’t made it. His dad would run a hand over his thick salt-and-pepper goatee and adjust his glasses and say, “Son, you worry about yourself. We can manage just fine.”
“I see you couldn’t sleep either?”
LaRouche jerked at the interruption to his thoughts and looked up from the fire to find Father Jim standing there beside him, his arms tight around his chest and the hood of both the parka and the sweatshirt he wore underneath, up over his head.
LaRouche smiled marginally and looked back into the fire. “I gave up on it about an hour ago.”
“Yeah. I’ve been lying awake for awhile.”
“What’s bothering you?”
Father Jim chuckled. “Death? Dismemberment? The unknown?”
LaRouche laughed quietly. “Yeah, that’ll keep you up at night.”
