by D. J. Molles
Carl nodded quickly. He chattered something into the squad comms. Lee couldn’t hear because he’d removed the earpiece. Then Carl climbed up into the Black Hawk, and a moment later, the three other operators came out of the shadows and clambered up into the cabin.
Julia remained, staring down at Harper’s body.
“Julia!” Lee shouted, a little harsher than he intended. Didn’t she see? Didn’t she understand? No, of course not. She turned around and looked at him, blank-faced and bleary-eyed, and she could not comprehend why Lee was so cold, why the death of a true friend had no effect on him. She would not understand that Lee couldn’t let it touch him. He couldn’t let it get its fingers through the crack in the door, because it would rip him to shreds. Don’t worry, Julia. It’ll get me. It always does. But right now, I can’t let it. I’ve got to hold out for a little longer.
Maybe she saw the hurt in his eyes, or maybe she just decided that Lee was a lost cause and there was no point in saying anything to such a cold-hearted bastard. But she turned away from Harper’s body with one last look, and she let Lee and Carl help her into the cabin of the Black Hawk where they situated her on the bench seat.
“We’re good,” Lee shouted. “Let’s move out.”
“What about Harper?” Julia demanded.
Lee gritted his teeth. “We’ll come back.” Then he nodded to Carl, who gave the command over the squad comms. Lee keyed the Camp Ryder command channel and spoke one more time. “Anyone from Newton Grove, can you copy this radio?”
Still, no response.
Lee looked at Carl. “What’s the fuel situation?”
“ ’Bout an hour’s flying time,” Carl reported. “What do you need?”
A rock in a vise. That’s what Lee felt like. He was either going to hold underneath the immense pressures, or he was simply going to shatter into dust. For now, he was holding. He could hold for a little while longer. “I need you to take a fly by Newton Grove. It’s only a little out of your way from Fort Bragg. They’re not answering their radio.”
Carl compressed his lips, but relayed the information to the pilots.
Lee keyed the radio again. “Tomlin, you still got comms up with the Marine artillery unit? Have they checked in yet? Did they make it through Newton Grove?”
Tomlin came back a little confused. “Yeah, Lee. They checked in at their position about two hours ago. I’m not really sure why Newton Grove ain’t answering their shit.”
Lee wasn’t sure whether that made him feel relieved or even more concerned. He was so busy blocking everything right now, even the sensation of fear was getting pushed away. Everything was feeling dreamlike and unreal, because he refused to let it get in to him.
That’s how psychopaths are made, Lee thought to himself. If you keep killing your sense of humanity, eventually it doesn’t grow back. But maybe it’s too late for that. Maybe I’ve chopped a little close to the root already.
A new voice came over the radio. He’d been avoiding it. It proved to him that things were still getting through that door in his mind, no matter how tight he thought it was shut.
Angela…
“Lee, this is Camp Ryder.” Hesitation. “I’ve got Marie with me. Did… did you…?”
Lee stared at Julia, who was looking over the side of the helicopter as they started to ascend. Staring down at the body they’d left there on the ground. She looked about as empty as Lee felt. They were always alike in that way. Julia allowed herself a little more leeway, but in the end, they always shut it down before they let it hurt them too much.
Lee’s voice was flat and monotone. “We got Julia,” he said. “She’s safe.”
Then he clipped the handset back to his rig before Angela or Marie or anyone could ask questions about Harper.
TWENTY
TIMING
TOMLIN STOOD ATOP THE Johnston Memorial Hospital. He was leaning up against the roof abutment, facing east and straining to see out into the darkness. There seemed to be no stars or moon tonight, except in small slits in the cloud cover, like a stage curtain that sways open every so often to reveal the set beyond.
He couldn’t see them. But he could hear them. In the distance. A sound like nothing he’d ever heard before. He could compare it to many things—rushing water, the distant rumble of a train, the roar of the shamal that would blanket Middle Eastern villages in fine yellow dust. It was all of these things, and something completely different.
It was the sound of legions. The sound of a host. Millions of feet pounding the ground, millions of throats barking and yelling and screeching, all of it distant so that it blended together into one strange noise that he could not only hear, but feel in his chest and in the balls of his feet and the palms of his hands. Distant, but still too close for comfort.
The hospital suddenly seemed a very flimsy thing to be standing on.
And not as tall as he would have liked.
He looked behind him. Jared was standing on the other end of the roof, looking out to the west. Tomlin realized his mouth was going dry and he worked some saliva into it. He glanced over to the southern-facing abutment of the hospital roof. There was a massive stack of trash there—anything that looked like it could burn—about seven feet high and twice that wide. It stank of the diesel fuel they’d doused it with. A pyre. A signal fire for the night. A beacon for the men in the bait trucks who were probably scared shitless. And also a beacon for the infected that followed.
Millions of infected, Tomlin thought, not truly comprehending it, but fearing it all the same. Are there really that many of them? What’s that gonna look like? I’ve never seen that many people before. It’ll look like a medieval battle. We’ll be completely fucking surrounded.
He swallowed the small amount of stale spit he’d been able to muster onto his tongue.
Fuck me. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Jared turned around and looked at him, full-fledged panic glimmering darkly in his eyes. “Where the fuck are they? I can hear them, but I can’t see them. How many do you think it is? And where the fuck are they? How long?”
Tomlin took a breath and spoke on the exhale, trying to sound more even-keel than he was. “They’ll be here soon enough.” He nodded to Jared. “Do me a favor and go downstairs. Get Joey and Brandy. Do a double-check on all the doors and windows and make sure our barricades are solid. And then get all of our shit and bring it up here.” He almost tried for a confident smile, but thought that if he didn’t fake it convincingly enough it might hurt more than it helped. “It’s fixin’ to be a long night, my friend.”
Jared nodded stiffly and fled for the stairs.
Tomlin walked over to the diesel-stinking pile of rubbish. Three road flares on the ground, ready to be lit and tossed in to start the pyre. He stared at the whole mess with vacant eyes, mind going elsewhere. Lee’s words bothered him. Newton Grove not answering.
He picked up the radio that the Marines had given him. He keyed the mic. “Smithfield to artillery.” He almost said “Steel Rain,” but caught himself. Some wire in his mind crossed with old memories. For simplicity’s sake, they were using mostly plain speak on the radios these days. “Smithfield to artillery.”
“Smithfield, you got the arty.” Tomlin recognized the voice before it was introduced. “This is First Sergeant Brinly. Go.”
“Hey Sarge, this is Captain Tomlin. Just got word from Captain Harden that Newton Grove ain’t responding to hails on the radio. Everything looking good from your end?”
A pause.
“Yeah. We’re in position and ready. Can’t tell you about Newton Grove. Haven’t seen them in several hours. They were fine when we rolled through.”
“Copy that.” Tomlin looked out east. “Nothing further on that. Get your big guns loaded. The bait trucks are almost here.”
“We copy, Smithfield. Artillery is loaded and ready. You give the word.”
Tomlin still couldn’t work the queasiness from his stomach. “Roger. Smithfield out.”
He hung the radio back on his rig and clung to his rifle, staring east and waiting for the first sign of headlights in the darkness.
LaRouche waited in the cold dark, in the cold leaves, surrounded by shadows and fear and determination and the sickly nervous thrill of impending violence. He lay in the leaves, his stomach clenched hard to ward off the chill, to force the blood to keep moving in his system so that he wouldn’t start shivering. His abdominals ached with the force of it.
He was about twenty yards into the woods, looking out to the edge and beyond, where bright halogen lights burned in the night and lit up a collection of military hardware. He watched the men, just silhouettes against the lights, moving back and forth, unloading crates from the trucks, what looked to him to be shells for the big guns they’d towed in. There was a perimeter guard, but he had already passed by twice and not noticed LaRouche. How could he? LaRouche was flat on the ground, buried in leaves and brush, twenty yards into the shadows of the forest. He was invisible to them.
He looked to his right and to his left. He could not see the others, but he knew that they were there. And behind them, there were more. And on the other side of the clearing where the Marine artillery had made camp, there were even more. The Marines were surrounded. They just didn’t know it yet.
But what the hell are they doing here? LaRouche had to wonder. Why set up an artillery unit in the middle of an overgrown farmer’s field? With no legitimate objective anywhere within firing range of those guns? When he’d first caught wind of the artillery coming out of Camp Lejeune, he’d assumed that it was meant for the Followers. But if they were looking for the Followers, they hadn’t looked very hard, and their guns were pointed in the wrong direction.
We’ll find out why they’re here. Later.
It was almost time.
Nate kept having to tell himself to slow down. He kept wanting to hammer down on the accelerator. He would get fixated on the rearview mirror and the strange images behind him.
His taillights were just a dim red glow, and at the very farthest reaches of them, he could see the ghosts of faces scrambling behind them. The noise of the engine and the noise of the roaring horde behind him sometimes melded into one, and the result was disorienting.
And then those demon faces would disappear into the hellish darkness behind him and he would look down at his speedometer and realize he was breaking thirty miles per hour, leaving the horde behind.
Slow down, slow down!
He would take his foot off the gas and they would coast. He didn’t want to press the brakes. He had this thought that just tapping the brakes would cause the whole fucking system to lock up and then they would be stuck, stranded, alone in the dark with millions of hungry mouths…
He knew it was unreasonable. But he still refused to touch the brakes or pull to a stop. The things behind him never seemed to tire. The whole damn way they’d been behind him, keeping pace, never flagging. A ninety-mile road march without a stop or break.
Maybe the individuals were tiring and falling back, only to be replaced by more from the back ranks. But it didn’t matter who it was directly behind them. It didn’t matter whose faces were illuminated by the red glow of his taillights.
The horde was keeping pace.
And it was maddening, having them so close behind him when all he wanted to do was run.
The darkness went by, unending. The endless noise of the infected behind him created a chamber in which Nate could hear nothing else. A sort of sensory deprivation chamber made of sound. He kept praying to God that Smithfield would come soon, that this would be over soon, but then he thought about what was lying ahead of him, and it was no relief. His stomach only sank deeper.
The hospital. Stuck on top with Tomlin’s crew. Surrounded by a sea of these things.
“Lord give me strength,” Nate said aloud, though he could barely hear his own voice. He hadn’t gone to church since the last time his parents dragged him when he was fifteen years old. But if there was ever a time to rediscover faith, it was now.
“That’s what we do, God,” Nate said louder, trying to hear himself, trying to be loud enough so that God could hear him over the sound of the disaster closing ranks behind him. But then he just finished the thought in his head: We put you aside until we figure out that we really need some help. And I need some help right now. I need it bad. Because I’m scared out of my mind right now.
Nate didn’t know whether it was an answer to his prayers or a promise that things were only going to get worse, but out of the gloom his headlights reflected off of a dirty green sign: SMITHFIELD CITY LIMITS–CITYWIDE SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH UNLESS OTHERWISE POSTED.
Nate felt both elated and terrified. But he knew what he had to do, regardless of how he felt. He turned around, projecting his voice through the open back glass of the pickup truck where Devon was sitting in the bed, looking cold and nervous.
“We’re here, Devon! Hang on!” Nate grabbed the radio handset and transmitted: “Nate to the Smithfield crew. We’ve just entered the city limits. Go ahead and light that fire!”
Tomlin was quick to respond from the top of the hospital. “Nate, I copy you. We’re lighting the fire now.”
Nate realized he was leaning forward in his seat, searching the horizon ahead of him for a burning bonfire on top of a building. Perhaps ten seconds passed before he registered a slight glow that was hanging in the middle of the darkness ahead of him. And then that glow suddenly erupted into a visible flame. They were closer than he thought.
“Okay,” Nate said to the radio. “I see you guys right now. We’re gonna be coming in hot! Keep that fire burning!”
“Roger, we’re ready for you.”
Then Nate stomped the gas pedal and broke the citywide speed limit.
The noise of the horde suddenly faded just a bit, enough for him to feel like he was breaking free of them. Mixed in with his panic to get away from the horde was a sense of suddenly having blown the whole thing. What if he broke line of sight with them and they stopped pursuing? What if they didn’t give a shit about the fire? What if he just crippled the whole fucking plan?
Nate knew which way he had to take to get through the city streets of Smithfield—he’d been there a few times and had reviewed the maps of the safe routes religiously the night before taking on this mission of being a carrot on a stick. He knew he had just merged onto Highway 210 from Highway 70 and he slowed as he reached the sign for Second Street. He made a left turn and then he was going north.
What if what if what if?
The most dangerous question, and yet the one that needed to be asked.
He blew through intersections without hesitation, heading north for Hospital Road.
Two blocks from Hospital Road, he saw something spill into the street ahead of him.
“Oh shit!” He didn’t think it was possible for his heart to simultaneously drop into his guts and jump into his throat, but that was exactly what it did.
The roar of the horde was suddenly loud again.
Right on top of them.
He could barely hear Devon in the bed: “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”
Nate pushed the pedal to the floor. Both hands on the wheel. Elbows locked out. His whole body cringing behind that steering column. He watched the needle of the speedometer climb in a steady arc. Go go go go go!
“Nate!” Devon screamed from the back. “Nate, stop! Stop!”
Can’t stop! Can’t stop!
In the flash of his headlights, Nate could see thousands, filling the land to the left of the roadway. They were stumbling into the street, then changing directions, trying to run for the vehicle that they saw roaring toward them. They clogged the left lane, and then the center, and then the entire right lane, so that only the narrow gap of the shoulder remained.
Multitudes of faces, pale and contorted, faced him and lunged mindlessly for him. These were not like the packs, not like the hunters who knew that they could not get to the meat inside the vehicle.
This was like one being, and it seemed to know by some collective knowledge that it could smash anything by its sheer numbers. It could stop vehicles and get to what was inside. It was fearless in its insanity.
Nate shot for the gap on the right shoulder of the road.
He felt the tires hit grass and dirt. The back end loosened.
From the bed, Devon started shooting. The light flashed onto the side of the pickup, the sound of the gunshots battering at Nate’s head and ears. Something hit the side of the vehicle. Not just a single body. Nate felt the entire pickup truck jerk violently like it had been rammed by an immense creature. The steering wheel jerked in his hand and Devon toppled in the back, nearly flying out of the bed.
The tires spun in the loose shoulder.
Nate shouted wordlessly as he felt the pickup turning, starting to spin out.
Get me to the hospital, dear God, please, dear God just get me to the hospital!
The pickup lurched, then found asphalt again and charged forward. Something hit the front bumper and the truck jumped, running it over. Devon was in the back, screaming.
Hospital Road.
He yanked the steering wheel to the right, slamming the brakes so he could make the turn, and then accelerating again, tires spinning out, chirping, sending up white smoke. Up ahead, the signal fire on top of the hospital was burning brightly, very close to them now. Something tumbled around in the bed.
Two gunshots.
“Nate! Help!”
In the rearview, he could see something in the bed with Devon.
Pale flesh and bones sticking out.
Devon screamed. Then fired another volley of shots. Two of them smashed through the back glass, one of them destroying the truck’s console and the other passing an inch or two from Nate’s head and out the windshield.
“Devon! Devon! You okay?”
Devon screamed again, but then it became words: “I got him! I fucking got him!”
Nate’s mind worked in overdrive. They were supposed to have more time. More of a gap between their arrival and the infected horde. Now there was no time at all. And the window of opportunity for both bait trucks to get into the hospital was closing rapidly. If the hospital got surrounded before Paul and Junior arrived in their bait truck, they wouldn’t be able to get in.
