by James Cook
Lola sat down next to Tyrel and started eating her breakfast. I asked her, “Did you go see Lauren last night?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you get her what she needed?”
She nodded, swallowed a mouthful of beans, and said, “Yeah, but it was kind of a weird request coming from her. She doesn’t normally drink.”
I went still. Cold dread bloomed in my chest and spread to my face and hands. There are moments in life when seemingly unrelated events suddenly become warning signs, when a highlight reel of red flags you should have connected long ago flashes through your mind. Maybe you were distracted, or scared, or angry, or some other pressing matter demanded your attention. Whatever the case, there is an instant of clarity, and those signs suddenly coalesce into a single aggregated realization. A terrible understanding descends.
“What did you give her, Lola?”
Something in my voice made her look up, eyes wide and round. “I told you. She wanted a drink, so I snuck her a bottle of lemon vodka. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I dropped my plate and sprinted for the medical tent.
She wasn’t in her cot. The tent was empty. I stumbled outside, heart pounding, a loud ringing in my ears. A soldier walked by whom I recognized, one of the medics from the night I had brought Lauren in. I ran to him and grabbed his arm.
“Where did she go?”
He stepped back, one hand raised defensively. “Whoa! Calm down, man. What are you talking about?”
“My stepmother, Lauren Hicks. The woman I brought in the other night. Where is she?”
The medic shrugged. “I don’t know, man. You tell me. She said she was going back to your campsite when she left.”
The ringing grew louder. I had to shout to hear myself over it. “What time did she leave?”
“Around midnight. Why? What’s the problem?”
I wanted to gouge his eyes out. I wanted to pull my gun and shoot him in the face until the trigger clicked on an empty magazine. “You … let her leave?”
“Of course. There was nothing else we could do for her. I don’t have the authority to make her stay if she doesn’t want to.”
“Did she take anything with her?”
“Um … a few personal items. I’m not sure what they were; she wrapped them up in one of her shirts. Oh, and she borrowed a pen and a notepad from me. If you find her, could you ask her to bring those back? We’re kind of … hey, where you goin’?”
The medic said something else, but I didn’t catch it. The ringing had gotten too loud, punctuated by the timpani of my heart thudding, thudding, thudding. I walked a circle around the tent until I spotted a track that matched Lauren’s hiking boots. The trail led me to a deuce-and-a-half parked on the outer perimeter. Lauren’s tracks stopped at the rear bumper. I stepped up into the cargo area and shined my flashlight around.
She lay on one of the benches, slumped over as if she had been sitting down, then lost consciousness. I rushed to her side and shook her.
“Lauren, wake up.” No response.
There is a stillness that comes over a person in death, an utter lack of movement, no slight stirring of respiratory action, no involuntary twitches, no thrum of pulse against the skin of the neck. Nothing.
The tears started flowing, then. What small spark of hope I had left died when I laid my fingers over Lauren’s carotid artery. I left them against her cold skin for a long moment, praying I would feel a beat, a flutter, anything.
My prayers went unanswered.
*****
The troops who took her away later told me they found us because they heard someone screaming. I don’t remember that part. I remember pulling her into my arms, and the dreadful realization that rigor mortis had begun to set in, and wondering what I was going to tell my father, and how the ringing in my ears became so loud I thought it would shatter the world.
The rest is a blur.
I came to my senses in the medical tent. When I sat up on my cot, I felt a hand touch my shoulder and looked up to see my father sitting across from me.
“Dad …”
“How are you feeling, son?”
I shook my head. There was nothing to say. Dad took my hand and pressed a piece of paper into it.
“She left a note, Caleb.”
I stared at it, a little white square with my stepmother’s last words on it. When I looked back up at my father, his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his cheeks hollow, sunken, and covered in beard stubble. “Read it,” he said.
It took a few seconds to force my hands to respond. They shook as I unfolded the paper and held it up to the light.
Joe and Caleb,
This is not your fault. I did not do this because of you.
I’ve had enough. I look ahead of me, and I see nothing but darkness. There is no light at the end, no hope.
I can’t do this anymore.
The two of you brought me laughter, and love, and the best years of my life. You were the brightest stars in my sky. I will always love you.
We will see each other again, in a better place.
Take care of each other.
Lauren.
A sudden anger seized me. I crumpled the note and threw it to the ground. “How could she be so fucking selfish.”
“I’m sorry, son.”
“She should have said something. She should have come to us for help.”
“Caleb, don’t do this.”
“I can’t believe she would just leave us like this!”
Dad moved over to sit beside me. “There’s nothing we can do now, son. Getting angry and bitter won’t change a thing. And it won’t bring her back.”
My father put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his chest just as he had done a thousand times throughout my life. I sagged against him, his strength supporting me while I wept, and I remembered a smiling, auburn-haired young woman with hazel eyes and a shining smile and a laugh like the sound of bells ringing.
*****
Later, long after nightfall, after we had buried Lauren and said a few words over her and hammered a wooden cross into the ground, I sat atop a hill overlooking the convoy and stared at the fires straining against the endless dark. Part of an old poem I liked came to mind, one of Robinson Jeffers’ works:
Here the granite flanks are scarred with ancient fire.
The ghosts of the tribe crouch in the nights beside the ghost of a fire.
They try to remember the sunlight.
Light has gone out of their skies.
FORTY
Six days.
Six days since the convoy left the RV encampment. Six days since we had joined them hoping to find safety in numbers. And so far, all we had done was risk our lives so Morgan’s men would not have to, given up nearly all of our supplies, and lost the woman who mattered most to us in the world.
My father and I were in agreement. It was time to go.
After Lauren’s funeral, Morgan waited an hour, then announced the convoy would be heading out in the morning. He had managed to arrange for a supply drop, but we would have to cross into Colorado to get it. Personally, I thought he was full of shit. There was no reason an aircraft with the range of a Chinook couldn’t make it south to Oklahoma. He just wanted an excuse to get things moving. Tensions had been high in the wake of Private Stanhouse’s execution, and my guess was Morgan wanted to keep the peace by keeping his troops too busy to think.
Dad and I gathered everyone together early in the morning around a low-banked campfire. There was a clear sky overhead, the air was warm and getting hotter, and a strong breeze carried dust over the hills from the north. We stood in a tight cluster while my father spoke, staring at each other in the pale dawn light.
He said if any of them wanted to come with us, they were welcome. But if they wanted to stay with the convoy, that was all right as well. No hard feelings.
“Where you go, I go,” Sophia said, moving to stand next to me.
I
pulled her close and looked to her father. “You’re under no obligation, Mike. Sophia is an adult now. She can make her own decisions. I’ll take good care of her.”
The big Marine chuckled and shook his head at me. “You two have no idea how dumb you are. Don’t get me wrong, I love you both, and I know you mean well. But you’re stupid as hell if you think I’m gonna let either one of you out of my sight.”
I smiled and acknowledged with a single nod. Dad took a moment to grip Sophia’s hand, then turned to the others. “Lance, what do you say, man?”
His eyes strayed to the other side of the camp where the rest of the civilians were slowly starting their day. “I think I’m gonna stay, Joe. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I’m glad I could help you when you needed it. But I met a nice woman, and I know she isn’t going to leave this convoy. It might sound selfish, but right now, it’s the only thing I have to live for.”
Dad reached out and shook his hand. “Been nice knowing you, Lance. Best of luck.”
“Same to you.”
Blake took a step forward and said, “I’m with you, Joe. We’ve come this far together, might as well see it through.”
Dad thanked him, then looked at Tyrel and Lola. “What’s it gonna be, Ty?”
Our old friend shuffled his feet and glanced at Lola from the corner of his eye. “Well, my leg is still messed up. I wouldn’t want to slow you down. And I have Lola to think about.” He reached out and slipped his hand into hers.
Dad stepped closer and gripped his shoulders. “I understand, brother. Believe me, I do.”
They embraced briefly, patting each other on the back, then Dad turned to Lola. “Take care of this jackass,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek. “He requires constant supervision.”
Lola smiled. “I’ll do my best.”
To the rest of the group, he said, “We leave in half an hour. Let’s get to work.”
While the others loaded what supplies we were taking with us into the vehicles, I made my way to the command tent and requested to speak with the captain. A hard-eyed staff sergeant kept me waiting a few minutes and glared at me hotly enough to let me know my presence was unwelcome. I glared right back. After what had befallen my family, I did not give a baboon’s swollen red ass about his opinion. Finally, Morgan poked his head out of the tent and waved me in.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, moving to sit behind the folding table that functioned as his desk. He shuffled a few papers around and picked up a cup of coffee.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
The coffee stopped halfway to his face. He stared at me a long instant, then said “Leaving?”
“Yes, along with most of the others in my group. Lance is staying behind, as well as Tyrel and Lola. The rest are coming with us.”
He put the cup down and folded his hands on the desk. “I’m sorry to hear that. I really am. When are you leaving?”
“In about half an hour.”
He stood up and came around the desk to offer me a hand. “I wish we had met under better circumstances, Mr. Hicks. You’re a good man. I could use a hell of a lot more like you. And for what it’s worth, I’m terribly sorry about what happened to your stepmother.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well then, best of luck to you. I hope we meet again someday.”
“Good luck to you too.” And with that, I walked out.
On the way back to the campsite, I thought about the subtexts of conversations, the subtle ways we communicate on various levels when we speak to each other. There are cues you can detect in things like body language, facial expression, and tone of voice. If you live long enough, and if you are observant, you can learn to read the messages beneath the surface. Morgan had said all the proper things, made all the proper gestures, and his spoken message had been one of regret. But judging by other things, the facial tics, and inflection of voice, and the briskness of his movements—not to mention the way he seemed not at all upset by my departure—regret was not foremost in his thoughts.
If I had to guess, I would say the captain was relieved.
*****
“So here’s the deal,” Mike said, reading from a list scrawled in his hasty print. We were stopped on the side of the road, engines idling on a hillside a mile from the convoy. Our vehicles consisted of one of the Humvees from BWT, Blake’s Jeep, and Mike’s pickup truck. Dad let the folks from the RV encampment keep his Ram, and we let Tyrel and Lola have the other Humvee.
“We have enough food for two weeks if we’re careful,” Mike said, “and twenty gallons of fresh water. So supplies aren’t a problem right now. Worst-case scenario, we can hunt or scrounge what we need. As for medical supplies, we’d all have to be shot, stabbed, drowned, blown up, beaten half to death, and partially dismembered to run out. And if that happens, we’re all fucked and it won’t matter anyway.”
“What about weapons?” Dad asked.
“Weapons are as follows: Seven M-4 carbines, four MP-5 submachine guns, various pistols, my sniper rifles, two hunting rifles, and one M-249 SAW. As for ammo, we have three-thousand rounds of 5.56 loose, another thousand belted for the SAW, eight-hundred rounds of nine-millimeter, five-hundred rounds of 7.62, a hundred rounds of .300 Winchester magnum, and two-hundred rounds of .45 ACP.” He patted the Colt 1911 on his hip. “Additionally, we have two M-203 grenade launchers, fifty 40-millimeter HE rounds, and fifty frag grenades. Equipment wise, we have our tactical gear, four suppressors for the M-4s, one suppressor each for the MP-5s, four sets of NVGs, two pairs of binoculars, and the optics for our rifles.”
He tossed the piece of paper into the back of the Humvee and stared pointedly at my father. “The rest we donated to the fucking Army.”
Dad shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“No sense crying over it now,” Blake said. “We have enough to get us to Colorado. That’s the important thing.”
I sat on the tailgate of Mike’s truck, the warmth of Sophia’s thigh next to mine, and thought about all the gear we had taken from BWT. When we set out, we’d had enough hardware to outfit a small army. Now, we were down to a fraction of what we had started out with, and to make things worse, we were still at best a couple of days away from Colorado Springs. Not to mention the fact a soulless rapist had nearly killed me and driven my stepmother to take her own life. All in all, it seemed our experience with the United States Army had been a shit deal.
“Anyway,” Mike went on. “We’re good on food, water, and ordnance, but we only have enough fuel to get us maybe three-hundred miles if we’re lucky. After that, we’re on foot. Personally, I’d rather not take the chance.”
“What do you suggest?” Dad asked.
“I’ve been monitoring radio chatter from the convoy. They got word from Colorado Springs that I-25 has been cleared all the way south of Raton, New Mexico. My guess is they’re going to go south on 56 for a while, then cut west on 87 and pick up the interstate from there. They have all the fuel and supplies they need to make that trip.”
“Which means what for us?” Sophia asked.
“It means if we want to stay out of the Army’s way, the first thing we need to do is stock up on fuel. Best place to get what we need is Boise City. After we do that, we head north on 287 all the way up to 24 and approach Colorado Springs from the north.”
“What’s between here and there on that route?” I asked.
“Not a whole hell of a lot. Farms and road towns mostly. Anybody living in that area has probably evacuated already. Might be a few holdouts, so we’ll have to be careful. Other than that, it should be an easy trip.” He leaned against the Humvee and crossed his arms, staring in the direction of the convoy. “That said, I’d feel a hell of a lot better about this whole thing if we hadn’t given away damn near all our supplies.”
“Mike, we can stand around wh
ining about what we don’t have,” I said flatly, “or we can get a move on. Personally, I vote for the latter.”
Dad and Mike swiveled their heads in unison. Any other time, there would have been an angry retort from one or both of them. But it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d buried a woman I loved as much as any son ever loved his own mother, and I could feel the strain of it radiating from me. Consequently, the two men bit down on whatever they wanted to say and simply nodded. Sophia’s hand closed over mine.
“It’s okay, Caleb,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“No, Sophia. It’s not.” I jumped down from the tailgate and opened the driver’s side door. “Are we ready to go or what?”
We went.
FORTY-ONE
Hollow Rock, Tennessee
“I lost my parents a month after the Outbreak,” Miranda said. She reached up a hand and swatted at a low-hanging willow branch as she and Caleb passed it. “The Free Legion killed my brother.”
Night had fallen, and they were walking back to Miranda’s trailer. Caleb had paced himself with the drinks, but still had a buzzy, glossy feeling in his head. He put an arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “If you want to tell me about it, I’ll listen. No pressure.”
Miranda said nothing for a while. She held Caleb’s waist and leaned against him as they ambled down the street. She’d had nearly as much to drink as Caleb, but possessed less than two-thirds of his body mass to tone down the effect. He had warned her to slow down, but she waved off his concerns with a flick of a long-fingered hand.
They passed the center of town and the general store, then rounded the corner to Miranda’s street before she spoke again. “I’m originally from Nashville. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No. But then again, I never told you I’m from Houston.”
“You told me today.”
“Then I guess we’re even.”
