by James Cook
I walked over to an RV that looked empty and had one of those retractable awnings. After lowering it, I went inside and searched until I found a folding chair, then took a seat and waited.
The soldiers worked quickly, their first order of business helping anyone who needed medical attention. A few people had minor injuries, but the community was mostly healthy. Next, they assessed the vehicles at the settlement’s disposal and inventoried their fuel, trying to decide how far they could go on what they had. I overheard Mabel explain that the National Guard troops who had left these people here had mostly drained the reserves in the gas station’s underground tanks. What remained would not get them very far.
The few children in the encampment came out and surrounded some of the more friendly soldiers, touching their equipment and peppering them with questions. The men in uniform were unfailingly kind and patient, letting the kids look at their unloaded rifles and try on their helmets. It reminded me of YouTube videos I had seen of soldiers hanging out with children in Iraq, giving them candy bars and toys, trying to win hearts and minds. It was eerie to see the same thing happen on U.S. soil.
Once finished with their initial assessment, Morgan asked Travis to gather his people in the center of the enclosure. When they had come together in a loose, anxious knot, Morgan stood on an empty milk crate and raised his voice.
“I have good news, and I have bad news,” he said. “So I’ll give you the bad news first. There is a swarm of infected about eight miles behind us. I’d like to tell you how many of them there are, but I’m afraid it’s too many to count. Tens of thousands would be my best guess.”
A chorus of worried noise went up from the gathered survivors at this. Eyes went wide, couples pulled each other into shaky arms, parents clutched their children. The voices turned toward Travis, a dozen questions at once, all with the same message: What do we do?
“All right, all right,” Travis said, holding up his hands. “Don’t start panicking. Let the captain finish.”
The crowd quieted. Morgan nodded his thanks and continued. “If the horde follows the same patterns we’ve seen others follow, eventually they’ll disperse. But I can’t guarantee that will happen before they reach this settlement. And even if they do, the numbers of infected in the area will increase dramatically. Your defenses here will not be enough to stop them.”
He paused to let the facts sink in. The crowd went quiet, absorbing the news. When he sensed it had been long enough, Morgan said, “Now for the good news. There are about twenty thousand troops in Colorado Springs as we speak. By the end of the month, that number should be up to about thirty-five thousand. Just this morning, I received word that FEMA is setting up disaster relief stations in the area, and is offering aid to anyone who can make it there. Now here’s the deal, folks. I can’t promise you anything. I thought we had a pretty good chance of saving San Antonio, but there were too many infected. We were overrun. But I’ve been to Colorado, and I can tell you the terrain there in the Rockies will give us a hell of an advantage. We’ll have a lot better chance at fighting the infected there than we do here. So that’s where we’re headed. You’re all welcome to come with us. We should have enough room to fit you on the trucks, or you can travel in your own vehicles if you want. I can’t guarantee I’ll get you all to Colorado safely, but I can promise you I will damn well try. If you don’t want to come along, I can’t force you. But be aware, if you stay here, you’re probably not going to make it.”
He stepped down from the crate and looked at Travis at eye level. “We move out in an hour. You have until then to decide.”
With that, he walked away, motioning his troops to return to the convoy.
As the people in the settlement talked among themselves deciding what to do, Morgan looked my way and beckoned me over. I got up and followed him out of the gate and over to his Humvee. Once there, he passed a quick message over the radio and then stared at me for a few seconds, measuring me up.
“You look like you’re in pretty good shape,” he said finally. “That Travis guy was no joke, but you put him down with no problem. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you probably know how to handle yourself. You any good with that carbine?”
“I’m not terrible with it.”
“Had to kill any infected yet?”
“A few.”
“So you know about the headshot rule?”
“Damn near learned the hard way.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, me too. Listen, we’re short-handed here. We have a big job ahead of us, and not enough people to get it done. I need all the help I can get. You follow?”
“I’m not interested in joining the Army.”
“I’m not asking you to. I need people who can fight, and who can keep their head in a bad situation. What you just dealt with in there, most people wouldn’t have had the nerve to do what you did. I could use a guy like you, assuming you can follow instructions.”
“And what are you offering in return?”
“Safe passage to Colorado. As safe as I can make it, anyway. Think about it, man. What are you gonna do out here? You think you can survive in this place long term? Hell, most of it’s burned to the ground. Things are better up north. And you’re not going to find a faster, better way to get there than this convoy.”
I thought about it a moment and realized he had a point. But I had more than just myself to think about. “I have to admit, you make a good sales pitch,” I said. “But there are other people in my group.”
“More than just your buddy up there in the hills?”
I nodded. “My family.”
“Can any of them fight?”
“Some.”
He looked at me more closely, but I kept my face blank. When he realized I was not giving anything else away, he said, “Like I told you. I need all the help I can get. You can bring them along.”
“I’ll have to talk to them about it. Might take a while.”
“We leave in an hour. Sorry, but orders are orders.”
“Do what you have to do. If they decide to come along, we’ll catch up. What route are you taking?”
He took out a map and showed me. I committed it to memory, and then offered him my hand. “No promises, Captain, but you very well might be seeing me again. If you do, I’ll have company.”
He shook my hand. “Either way, it was nice to meet you, kid.”
“Likewise.”
*****
“I didn’t recognize any of them,” Mike said.
We had gathered in a circle back at the vehicles, all except for Lauren. She elected to stay in Dad’s truck with the engine running and the AC cranked as high as it would go. Tyrel had regained consciousness and stood across from me, one side supported by a makeshift crutch, the other by Lola. His eyes were still somewhat glassy from the pain meds, but at least he was on his feet. Lance, meanwhile, leaned against the fender of my father’s truck, arms crossed over his chest, keeping his distance from the conversation.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Blake said. “46 is a long highway. There were thousands of troops when we left.”
“But from what that captain was saying, not many survived,” Tyrel said. “How many were in that convoy, do you think?”
I shook my head. “Maybe a hundred or so.”
“Jesus,” Dad muttered, wiping a hand across his face. “I’m not happy about what they did to Tyrel, but I didn’t wish them dead.”
“None of us did,” Mike said. “But we can’t change what happened. What’s important right now is what we decide going forward.”
“Are you sure they’re not the same troops we ran into on Highway 46?” Tyrel asked.
“As sure as I can be,” Mike replied. “Looked to me like they came from a different section of the highway than the one we tried to cross.”
“Either way,” Dad said, “the only one of us they would recognize is Tyrel, and even that’s pretty damn unlikely.”
Tyrel grimaced. �
��There’s also the matter of my leg.”
“We can explain that away,” Dad said. “Tell them someone tried to rob us and we fought them off, something like that.”
“Works for me.”
“Then it’s decided?” Mike asked. “Are we really going to do this?”
Dad searched all of our faces. “Any objections?”
No one spoke. He turned around and looked at Lance. “What do you say? You in?”
Lance shrugged. “Got nothing else going at the moment. Might as well.”
“Caleb, you ride up front with Mike,” Dad said. “When we catch up with the convoy, I’ll let you do the talking.”
THIRTY-ONE
We caught up with them on 281 just outside of Blanco.
Captain Morgan (to this day I can’t say it without a smile) had stopped the convoy a mile outside of town and sent scouts ahead in Humvees. When a lookout saw us approaching, Morgan and one of his aides drove back to meet us.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Hicks,” he said, stepping out of his vehicle. His aide remained behind, no doubt monitoring radio traffic. The captain eyed our Humvees skeptically. “Where the hell did you find those?”
“You might say they were a gift.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Come meet everyone. My father can explain.”
We did the round of introductions. Morgan took in the other men’s appearance—the weapons, the tactical gear, the familiar, confident way in which my father and his friends handled themselves—and I saw an acquisitive gleam in the Army officer’s eyes. When he shifted his attention to Sophia, Lola, and Lauren, the gleam faded, replaced by apprehension.
“Nice to meet all of you,” he said. “Do you mind telling me where you came across those?” He pointed to the Humvees.
My father spoke up. “These three and I used to work for a civilian-owned survival and firearms training facility, Black Wolf Tactical. Everything you see here except the trucks and the Jeep were owned by the company.”
“Even the machine guns?”
Dad nodded. “Yep.”
“Aren’t those illegal for civilians to own?”
“In most cases, yes. Unless you have the proper licenses, which BWT did.”
“I don’t suppose you have any documentation to back that up, do you?”
“I do.” Dad held a hand toward the lead Humvee. “Would you like me to show you?”
“Lead the way.”
I watched my father remove a cardboard box from the back of a Humvee, open it, and neatly arrange a number of files on the back seat. He pointed to each one, explaining what it contained. Morgan picked up a couple of them, half-heartedly sifted through the papers within, then shook his head and dropped them back in the box.
“Good enough for me,” he said. “Honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t care if you stole this stuff as long as you’re willing to help me.”
“What help do you need?” Dad asked.
“You look ex-military to me. These other guys too. Am I right?”
The four men took turns explaining their credentials. My father disclosed he had been a Green Beret, but stopped short of mentioning his time in Delta Force. It seemed odd to me, but I shrugged it off, figuring the old man had his reasons.
Lance revealed he had served four years in the Marines, then spent the last twenty years in law enforcement, twelve of those with the Houston Police Department’s SWAT team. Figuring he was eighteen when he joined the Marines, I guessed his age at forty-two. He was in good shape, but looked older than that.
With each proffered resume, the acquisitive light in Morgan’s eyes grew steadily brighter. He expressed concern about Tyrel’s wounded leg, but seemed appeased when Tyrel assured him he could still man a machine gun or provide long-range fire support with his .338 Lapua magnum. Finally, Morgan returned his attention to me.
“Well, you make a little more sense now. Did you grow up around these guys?”
“All except Lance, yes. We met recently.”
He chuckled. “Christ, kid. You must be a freakin’ monster.”
“So what do you think, Captain?” My dad said. From his expression, I could tell he was eager to change the subject. “Got a place for us in your convoy?”
“Absolutely,” Morgan said. “Just hang back in the rear for now. Once we know what’s ahead of us, I’ll sort out where to put you.” He went through another round of handshakes, this one more enthusiastic than the first. “Again, it was nice to meet all of you. Glad to have you on board.”
“Same to you, Captain,” Dad said. We watched the young officer stride away, climb into his Humvee, and drive back toward the head of the column.
“Well that went well,” Blake said.
“Yeah,” Dad said, sounding uncertain.
I looked at him, not liking his tone. He stared at the dust trail in the wake of Morgan’s Humvee, his dark eyes unhappy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He glanced at me and shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later. Mike, take point if you don’t mind.”
The big man nodded once. “Not a problem.”
“Everybody else, let’s get out of this heat.”
“Fuckin’ gladly,” Tyrel said, leaning on Lola’s arm as he limped back to his Humvee. Sophia came to stand next to me, her arm slipping around my waist. I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.
“How you holdin’ up?”
She nuzzled her face against my chest. “Better, now that you’re back.”
“I think things are going to be all right, now.” I said. “What that guy Morgan said about Colorado Springs, he seemed pretty convinced. I think we’ll be safe there.”
“I hope so,” Sophia said. “I hate all this running. It’s only been a few weeks since Houston, but it feels like a lifetime.”
“Tell me about it.”
She looked up at me, her eyes like pools of dark honey. “Do you really think things will be better in Colorado? You think we’ll be safe?”
The truth was, I had no idea. Nothing I had seen of the spiraling world around me gave me the slightest confidence there was such a thing as a safe place anymore. But when I looked down at Sophia, I saw hope, and I saw her confidence in me, and her trust, and there was a surge of something in my chest that made me want to be all the things I saw in her eyes. So in my foolishness, rather than reveal my doubts and my fears, and speak to her honestly of the risks we were taking and let her make an informed, adult decision, I took the coward’s way out—I resorted to false bravado.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Sophia,” I said, and planted a gentle kiss on her lips. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She smiled at me, little dimples forming in her cheeks. “I believe you.”
How easy it was to make promises, then, before I understood the consequences of failure and hubris. Before I learned of the demons that come in the late hours before sleep, and the burdens of regret one carries in their wake.
Fate is a cruel teacher. But by God, her lessons stick.
*****
With the exception of a few wandering infected, the town of Blanco was abandoned.
The sun was low in the sky, wearing on toward evening. The captain decided to make camp in town for the night and move on at first light. The convoy went in first to exterminate what few undead occupied the streets. We waited in our vehicles with the windows down and the engines off to conserve fuel. Sophia sat in the passenger’s seat, one hand clasped in mine, the other fanning her face with a torn-off flap of cardboard. A thin sheen of perspiration covered her skin, turning her hair dark brown where it stuck to her neck.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No idea. Guess it depends on how many undead there are.”
We didn’t talk much after that, just sat and listened to the sound of distant gunfire. One of Morgan’s troops made his way back to us and inquired if we had radi
os or not. When he found out we did, he told us what frequency to set them to so we could receive messages from Morgan and his senior staff. I turned the knob to the appropriate setting, placed the radio on the dashboard, and waited.
Not long after that, the cracks of gunfire diminished in frequency until they ceased altogether. A few minutes later, the radio came to life.
“All stations, this is Captain John Morgan. At this time, it appears the town is clear of infected. However, I urge you to proceed with caution. There’s no telling where more of them might be trapped, or how many more might be headed our way. Do not, I repeat do not open any doors, approach any windows, or attempt to enter any buildings. I’ve posted troops throughout town who will direct you to the Best Western on 281, where we’ll be making camp for the night. Follow their directions, and do not deviate from the path. If you do, my men will not be responsible for your safety. Please proceed ahead.”
On the road beyond the windshield, two big green trucks laden with the survivors from the RV encampment and their possessions revved their motors and slowly lumbered north. We waited until they gained some distance on us, then followed suit.
The bridge on 281 leading into town passed slowly under our wheels. A thin green lake too neat and even not to have been shaped by the hand of man surrounded Blanco to the south. We rolled through the streets, first passing empty lots, then a mix of small businesses, houses, a few restaurants, and a large graying building occupying the center of an entire block proclaiming itself the Old Blanco County Courthouse. Farther on, it was more of the same. A bank, a real-estate office, a church, an auto parts store, a moving truck rental agency, and interspersed amongst it all, house after empty house.
“Looks like the people who lived here took their cars with them,” I said. “What few I see are mostly junkers.”
“It’s so sad,” Sophia replied. “Houses look different when nobody lives in them anymore. Like they’re in mourning or something.”
I scanned the periphery of the street, watching the forgotten mailboxes, empty windows, and yawning driveways slip by. “Maybe they are.”
