by D. J. Molles
It was obvious that the voices were in disagreement. At first, Harper could not hear what they were saying, only that it was an apparent argument, but as they drew closer, the words became more distinct.
“… I was with you from the start. But this isn’t what we fucking talked about. This wasn’t what you fucking described, man.” A sound of irritation. “This is some fucked-up shit.”
“This is how it’s going down. Don’t go all queasy on me now.”
The door to the barn ripped open harshly. Baker, the light-skinned black guy stood there, looking immensely pissed from under the brim of his floppy hat. Close behind him was Kensey. Baker took a step into the barn, and then stopped and turned to address Kensey.
“Don’t play that with me, bro.” Baker put a finger in Kensey’s chest. “You know the shit I’ve done for you.”
Kensey glanced at Harper, then swiped the finger from his chest. “Hey, why don’t you lock it up, jackass?” He nodded fractionally in Harper’s direction. “You want to talk, we can do it outside. Quietly. Don’t get all black and loud on me now.”
Baker eyed Harper with some annoyance and then reversed himself, stepping back through the door and outside. He shouldered Kensey and said, “Fuck you, mick.”
Kensey locked eyes with Harper, as though the whole disagreement was his fault. He spat into the dirt and then closed the barn door again. The voices were quieter, but Harper could still hear most of what was said. The rest he intuited from context.
“So what are you saying?” Kensey’s voice. “We gonna have problems?”
“Nah. You’re the one makin’ a problem. I just said that shit was fucked up. You got a problem with me sayin’ the truth, it’s probably ’cause you got a guilty conscience about it.”
“You pulled the trigger just as much as I did.”
“Nah, I didn’t shoot them dudes up on the wall. That was all you.”
“What’d you think was gonna happen, big boy? We were just gonna order ’em to lay down their weapons? We were gonna babysit ten dudes? Fuck that. We got the two important people. The rest were just wasting space. And you were on board with this twelve hours ago. You wanted this just as much as everyone else in this squad, so don’t act all high and mighty ’cause you got a little dirt under your fucking fingernails.”
“I went along with it because you’re my boy. But I’m starting to think that was a bad fucking idea.”
“Which part? Going along with it or being my boy?”
“Yeah. Both.”
“Really? You wanna walk?”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“Then walk, motherfucker. But that’d be pretty fucking dumb at this point, because nobody else is going with you. You already did the work, even if you think it was too damn dirty for your black ass. Might as well reap the rewards.”
There was a moment of silence. Harper glanced at the Marine who was sitting by the fire. He was staring into the fire, shaking his head slowly.
Something banged up against the metal wall of the barn loud enough to make Harper jump. There was the sound of scuffling feet. A few grunts and grumbles. More scuffling, shuffling, scrambling. Then it got quiet for another long moment. There was a gagging sound.
The Marine at the fire stood, but didn’t make a move for the door.
The silence beyond stretched. Harper began to imagine.
Then the door opened and Kensey stepped through, looking a little dusty, a few scratches on his neck, sucking the blood from a split lip. He held his rifle with one hand and was breathing hard through his nose. He looked hatefully at Harper, and then turned to the fire.
The Marine at the fire looked outside. “Baker all right?”
“He’ll be fine.” Kensey raised his voice a little bit, as though he were saying something for the benefit of someone still outside the barn. “I think everyone’s just goin’ a little stir crazy. We only got a little while longer to wait. They should be here any time now. So let’s just calm the fuck down.”
Harper stared at the Marines as they switched out who was resting and who was watching. None of them made any eye contact. Whatever was going on, Harper didn’t think the Marines really wanted anything to do with Harper and Julia.
We got the important ones, Kensey’d said. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Seated almost back-to-back with him, Julia stirred awake. Kensey kept her drugged, whether out of mercy or strategy, Harper couldn’t tell. He wished that she was awake more often, but he was glad that she was not in pain. He felt her fingers touch his, and both their hands were cold from lack of circulation. He squeezed her finger to let her know that he was with her.
But for how much longer?
Not much longer until they get here, Harper thought obtusely. Whatever the fuck that means.
Not much longer…
Brett ended up in the van with Mac and Georgia and a mixed assortment of both their groups. Brett thought that was interesting. Maybe it was the sense of desperation hanging thick like a fog over everything. Even survivors could be cliquish at times, but here and now they were crammed together and not saying a word about it. The people from Brett’s group were seated with the people from Mac and Georgia’s group and they spoke to each other, swapping war stories and gloomy premonitions.
Brett was by no means the leader of his group. They didn’t really have a leader, but if they’d gone around and polled them all on who they thought was their leader, Brett might have the winning vote. He had come along late to the party, joining their group only a few weeks before their little farm camp was razed by the Followers. Brett had arrived with only the clothes on his back, and he’d escaped the destruction much in the same manner—piled into the back of a pickup truck with everyone else, clutching a rifle, his face soot-stained from the fires he’d choked through while he fled.
It wasn’t until that day that it seemed those people started to trust him. And maybe it was because they had no choice. The people they saw as their leaders had been murdered and burned and hung from telephone poles, or enslaved, either to fight or to breed. They were scared and lost. Brett must have seemed confident to them. Maybe that was why they clung to him.
The day that he’d come across the man named LaRouche on the road, as they’d fled from the Followers with only an hour between them and the destruction they had left behind, Brett had cemented his spot in the bedraggled vestiges of that group. He had been the one who told them about the Camp Ryder Hub. He had been the one that had spoken with LaRouche. He had been the one that had taken them to Smithfield, seeking asylum. He had been the one that had dealt with Jacob, and had fought alongside the exiles from Camp Ryder to take it back.
Now, when Brett asked for a few bodies to help hold Newton Grove, in order to save the Camp Ryder Hub, nearly everyone capable of holding a rifle and pulling a trigger had volunteered. He’d actually forced a few of them to stay behind.
And now here he was. Driving down Highway 50, straight toward Newton Grove, not knowing what was ahead of them. Not knowing how many of these people were going to be alive in another twenty-four hours. Only knowing that he had a job to do. It didn’t matter that he was scared near to the point of trembling—in fact, his legs were trembling, but he hid it well.
It would be good to get out of the van, he knew. Once he was moving, once he was doing what needed to be done, then it would not be so bad. But nerves always festered in the stillness of waiting. Left at idle, the mind could make a coward of even the bravest man.
Mac drove the van, with Georgia in the passenger seat, looking as gray and curmudgeonly as ever. Brett knelt between the two front seats and watched their progress. In front of them was a flat road that rarely curved. Just two simple lanes with yellow paint between them, barely visible now over the leaves and branches that clogged the road. To either side, fields sat looking sadly abandoned, the dirt and dead weeds as gray as corpses. The stands of forest were similarly colored. A herd of deer watched them from the center of a
field and darted away skittishly as the van drew parallel with them. Every mile or so there was a farmhouse, sometimes close to the road, and other times tucked back away with a long gravel driveway leading to it. From what Brett could tell, almost all of them looked like they’d been looted. As they passed at forty-five miles per hour, Brett noted small details: a missing door here, broken windows there, fire damage on many of them.
Someone must’ve set the houses just to watch them burn, Brett thought. There didn’t seem to be any legitimate reason to burn a random farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
As they drew closer to Newton Grove, the scenes started to change. Some of the evidence of looting was not as prevalent. Most of the abandoned cars had been pushed out of the roadway, or in areas where there was a slight snarl, they had at least been pushed far enough to clear a path. There were several places that caught Brett’s eye, and he thought that these might have been used for sentry outposts to guard the roads. A small embankment that provided high ground, with beaten paths through the overgrown weeds, leading to the top. A box truck with a ladder against the back and sandbags on top—that one was obvious.
Brett saw them and pointed them out, and Mac would slow the van. But the nests and lookouts were never occupied, and the convoy would continue on. Everything seemed to be abandoned.
“This doesn’t look like a place where people are living,” Brett commented.
“We’re not even there yet,” Georgia said. She had a gruff way of talking. She reminded Brett of an old washerwoman, the way she walked around with stooped shoulders and glared at people, her haggard face framed by her stringy gray hair. Centuries ago she would’ve been accused of witchcraft and burned, Brett thought.
Brett shifted his weight, relieving some of the stress on his knees. He was tense. Jumpy, even. He couldn’t seem to sit still, and both Mac and Georgia seemed to have already taken notice, though they hadn’t said anything. When he fidgeted they just kind of gave him a sidelong glance, their faces somewhat annoyed.
“You guys are some pretty cool customers, huh?” Brett said, only half antagonizing.
“What do you mean?” Mac asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
“I mean…” Brett glanced between the two of them. “Neither of you seem very nervous.”
Mac shrugged. “Well, you heard the good captain. He thinks this place is abandoned. What’s there to worry about?”
Brett almost laughed, but caught himself. “So it’s only people that worry you?”
Mac nodded. “Most of the time. The infected? We can drive away from the infected. They aren’t gonna shoot at us, and they ain’t gonna drive after us. But people… people are more dangerous.”
Brett considered it. “Yeah. I guess you kind of have a point. On the small scale, that is.”
Georgia looked at him, perpetually irritated.
“I’m just saying,” Brett explained. “People don’t band together in massive hordes and strip the countryside clean and kill everything in their path. Like a fucking… a fucking plague of something.”
“A plague o’ locusts o’er the land?” Mac said with a half smile.
“Sure. Yeah.” Brett nodded. “But seriously.”
“I know.” Mac’s face dropped the smile. “We’re serious. We just… we try not to get too worked up.”
Brett pointed through the windshield. “That it?”
Straight ahead the road ended in what looked like a barricade of some sort. There was a substantial amount of Jersey barriers, which made Brett think that there had been some state-sponsored barricading going on before the survivors took over. But as they drew closer, he could see that there were also cars, tires, and fifty-gallon drums that he assumed were filled with something heavy—either water or dirt. Brett couldn’t really see beyond the barrier, but he could see the limbs and upper branches of a stand of large trees.
Mac stopped the van about a block from the barricades and the giant turnabout that marked the dead center of Newton Grove, North Carolina. To either side were dilapidated buildings. To the left it was brick with chipping white paint revealing dusky red underneath. To the right it was regular redbrick storefronts. A gas station. A Hardee’s restaurant. An automotive store.
All of them very still and quiet.
“Creeps me out sitting in the middle of all this shit,” Brett said, unconsciously lowering his voice.
“Yeah,” Mac seemed to actually agree, and the van crept forward another few feet before he stopped it. “Maybe we should get out and walk.”
“That sounds good,” Brett said, nodding.
Georgia already had her door open. “Leave the engine running.”
Brett and his people were the only ones with weapons, though they didn’t have enough to even fill the hands of every person in his group. Lee had given them six rifles, which were the only ones they had to spare. He’d given them a total of twelve magazines, so each person had enough to refresh their rifle only once. Everyone already had a passing familiarity with the M4 platform—Lee had taught it to them shortly after he’d taken Camp Ryder back.
Mac and Georgia’s group was largely weaponless, unless you counted various cutting and bludgeoning instruments. A lot of machetes and axes, Brett noted. There was a shotgun and a hunting rifle in the mix somewhere, but in a show of solidarity, Mac and Georgia both had gone without firearms. After shoving some supplies off to the Marines so that they could get their artillery convoy rolling, Lee’s first stop would be right here in Newton Grove, to arm Mac and Georgia’s group, and the rest of Brett’s.
But for now, it was up to Brett and the five others in his group that were armed. So when the convoy stopped and the doors opened, Brett’s people moved up first. They were undisciplined and clumsy, and they were scared. But they formed a loose line out in front of the rest of the people who had no weapons and they started moving forward, very cautiously.
As he got closer to the concrete barriers, Brett smelled something that had become very familiar to him. He wrinkled his nose and stopped dead in his tracks. A glance to either side revealed that Georgia and Mac were smelling the same thing, too.
“That’s not a good sign,” Brett whispered.
After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed forward. Here, directly in front of him, the walls around the Newton Grove camp were only barriers, and they were only chest-high. From about fifteen yards away, Brett could clearly see down into what had once been the town of Newton Grove. What had once also been the group of survivors that had gone by the same name. The details seemed too big to gather, but Brett comprehended what he was seeing in broader strokes.
The camp inside of those barriers seemed to be a sister city to Camp Ryder’s own Shantytown. Just a bunch of cobbled-together structures that nearly filled the entire space inside of their hastily erected walls. But it was obvious that they had not built the walls high enough. They had not built them with barbed wire and spikes of metal and broken glass, like Camp Ryder did. And something had gotten inside.
There were some bodies, but mostly there were just parts.
Black blood.
Bullet holes.
“They had a hell of a fight here,” Mac said.
“With what?” Georgia croaked, hand over her nose.
Brett didn’t say so, but he was looking at one of the bodies. Not one of the people that had belonged to the group, he didn’t think. This body was whole, rather than ripped to shreds. It was completely naked. Bloat and rot had taken it, but Brett could still see the face. The ghastly face with its hollowed out eye sockets and the jaw that hung open just a bit too wide to be normal. The long, lanky arms. The overgrown, clawlike fingernails.
He didn’t say so, but he thought he knew what they’d been fighting.
ELEVEN
THE HOSPITAL
IN THE TIME THAT he had been with Lee at Camp Ryder, Tomlin had yet to go to Smithfield, or to see the Johnston Memorial Hospital, which had become a sort of medical way station for the Camp Ryder Hu
b. According to Lee, it was still full of supplies, but had yet to be taken back after Jerry had pulled everyone out, leaving only a skeleton crew to research the infected woman that Jacob had captured. Then Jacob had met with Brett’s group, fleeing from the Followers and coming to Smithfield on the advice of a long-lost LaRouche, and Jacob had left the place abandoned.
Tomlin’s team needed very little, except for the ammunition they carried for their own defense. It was Tomlin, and the three people he had garnered as volunteers for this particular aspect of the mission, and they could all fit into a small, older model sedan with a squeaky fan belt and a puttering engine. They each took a small pack with them, mostly containing some food and water that would hopefully last them until the bait trucks could get the hordes into Smithfield. But food and water wasn’t a big concern.
Joey-the-college-student was up front with Jared-the-electrician. Tomlin and Brandy-the-waitress sat in the backseat. Jared had taken the wheel and was driving with both hands on it, leaning forward in his seat and scanning all around as the four-banger putted down Brightleaf Boulevard at a steady thirty miles per hour.
Tomlin knew none of them well, but he felt like that was going to change. You can’t be stuck on a roof with someone and not get to know them a little bit. These were simply the people he had talked to that had heard the call and volunteered. He wished he could say that he chose them specially for this part of the mission—people with nerves of steel and good skills, that were going to watch his back and their teammates’ backs. People that would make him feel more confident.
But what he got was volunteers. A student, an electrician, and a waitress.
I can make do, he told himself, sitting upright in the backseat with his rifle in his lap, looking out the back driver-side window at the carnage of the small town known as Smithfield. He’d never gotten the full story, but Tomlin could intuit from bits and pieces of conversation that he picked up from others. Smithfield had been a bloodbath when they’d found it months before, when Lee had first come to Camp Ryder. And it had been a bloodbath again when they’d cleared it of the thousands of infected that were milling about in the streets.
