by Tom Calen
“I don’t want to split our forces. Besides, with the exception of the crops, everything else is portable.” He knew men had been working day and night to rig suitable transports for the water and gas systems. The livestock would be herded, of course, though the animals’ pace would certainly be cumbersome. He begrudgingly accepted the idea that many, if not most, of the Horde would opt to remain in America. But Paul had no intention of staying stationary. With the numbers he commanded now, with the arms and munitions available to him, he intended to expand the parameters of his search. In his mind, he could see the numbers swell until a vast mobile city had covered the many miles of the country. Lofty, he knew, but it was his goal nonetheless.
With a forced calmness to his tone, Hicks leaned forward in his chair and spoke. “Paul, if you asked them now, no one would vote to leave.”
“That might change once there is a ship in front of them,” Paul replied, the comment was one that usually ended the debate. “If we really are going to sweep out the remaining Tils in this county, I don’t want any half-hearted soldiers. The road ahead is far too dangerous for that. Any that agree to stay after turning down the immediate rescue… well, at least we know they won’t break easily.”
“That still leaves the Strykers and Bradleys. I doubt your superiors are going to give them to you as a parting gift,” Derrick reminded him.
Before setting out on the initial mission, the governing council in New Cuba had outfitted Paul’s team with two Bradley tanks and several varying Stryker armored vehicles. Drennan and the Horde had destroyed two of the Strykers, and Paul was not willing to surrender any more of the powerful machines. “We’ll think of something.”
* * *
The remainder of the afternoon was spent surveying the preparations for departure and trying to ignore the oppressive heat. A child of the South, Paul had spent all but a few of his summers baking in high temperatures. Texan summers were decidedly different and far more draining. The heat seemed to leech into the body and sap it of all energy. The lack of humidity, though making breathing easier, left him feeling dry and parched. And it’s still technically spring, he reminded himself, wiping sweat from his brow with the top of his forearm.
“What d’ya think?” asked James Hingurth, one of the first members of the Horde Paul had met. The question referred to the flatbed truck that now carried three large cisterns of the camp’s water supply. Contraptions beyond Paul’s expectations were affixed atop two of the containers, purifying the water to levels acceptable for human consumption, while the third was rigged to collect rain and dew. At capacity, the large jugs would hold a combined three thousand gallons of water. Paul had thought the cisterns would need to be emptied before being lifted onto the flatbed. Instead, engineers combined the power of the Strykers with a usable crane and managed to place all three safely onto the truck without losing a drop of the precious liquid.
“Looks good,” Paul commended. “How is the stability?”
“We have a few more supports to finish, but she should hold up fine as long as we don’t decide to go off-roading,” the other man replied with a laugh.
Paul returned the laugh. “The Bradleys are pretty good at clearing obstacles.” He was about to say more when the conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched scream from the western section of the camp. Though the hair on his arms rose with goose-bumped flesh, it was not until the scream was repeated that he and those with him broke into a run toward the sound.
The running party grew as it raced through the camp. The screaming, and he assumed the voice belonged to a woman, ripped through the air several more times beforehe reached a small crowd of people. When a few of the distraught faces recognized him, they parted to allow him to move through the huddle. At the center of the human circle, a middle-aged woman clung desperately to a small girl, both faces red with tears.
“What happened?” Paul asked the nearest person.
“Says there was one of the infected in her tent,” the man answered.
“A Til? In the camp?” Paul forced the hint of panic from his voice. Judging by the pale faces and the darting eyes, the crowd around him was already fearful that the woman’s story was true. Kneeling down, he laid his hand on the woman’s shoulder gently, though she still flinched at the first moment of contact. From fear of the Til? he could not help but wonder.
“Are you hurt?” Paul asked, with what he hoped was a soothing tone. Neither woman nor child showed symptoms of infection, no seizures, spasms, or hemorrhaging. “Bring her some water,” he instructed to any who focused on his words.
“It… it almost had her,” the woman croaked through tears. Before she could detail the entire story, he wanted to get mother and child away from the straining ears of the gathered spectators. Easing her up from a kneeling position, he guided the pair towards a nearby tent. As they reached the flapped opening in the canvas, a boy in his late teens handed Paul a jug of water and two mismatched mugs. With a grateful nod, he accepted the items and helped the frightened woman and her young daughter into the tent.
Before he could instruct otherwise, several others stepped into the tent. Derrick and Hicks he had expected, but an elderly couple had also joined them. Paul was about to ask the pair to leave, but the gray-haired woman stepped confidently to a large wooden chest and withdrew a thick blanket that she placed around woman and child. Assuming them to be the residents of the dwelling, he turned to the man and asked if he would make sure no one else entered. As the man ambled to the tent flap, Paul returned his attention to the shivering pair now seated at a small table.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he prodded carefully. The woman raised her head to meet his eyes, while her daughter sniffled against her chest.
“I was outside hanging up laundry to dry,” she began. “It was maybe four, five minutes before I went back in. Anna was standing in the middle of the tent, in a puddle… she had wet herself. That’s when I saw it. Towards the back, in the shadows. At first we just stared at each other, but when it took a step forward I screamed, grabbed up Anna and ran outside.”
Wordlessly, Hicks turned and slipped out of the tent. Paul caught the movement in his periphery but kept his focus on the woman. “Are you sure it was a Til? An infected?” he asked. “You said it was in the shadows. Could it have been someone from the camp that—”
“Mister, I know I haven’t been here long and you don’t know me, but I lived out there since it began. I know what an infected looks like.” Paul felt guilt at offending her with an implication of doubt. It was not the veracity of her words that had sparked the question in fact, but rather an unwillingness to believe that a Til had actually penetrated the camp’s defenses without the slightest detection.
“I’m sorry, ma’am” he said with sincerity. “If you don’t mind, I would like to take a look at your tent.”
“It’s Patty, not ma’am,” she answered with a weak smile. “And you can have the damn tent. We’ll find a new one. I’m not going back in there after one of them has been in it.”
“Thank you, Patty,” Paul said as he rose. “I’ll have a new tent and supplies sent to you before sunset.” Her weak smile was quickly replaced with one much larger and more grateful. He’d barely left her side when the older woman, who had been waiting patiently off to the side, swept past him with food and water for her impromptu guests. Paul shook the hand of the man he believed to be the woman’s husband after he held the canvas door flap open for him and Derrick to exit.
“Think she’s right? That it was a Til?” Derrick asked, voice little more than a whisper as the men walked through the still-gathered crowd.
“Yes.”
“Over here,” Hicks called to them from the front of a much smaller tent. Paul had assumed the man had already begun investigating the woman’s claims, thus his earlier departure. Before entering Patty’s tent, he addressed the crowd as they waited, anxiety high, for some news.
“Patty and her daughter have had a bit of a scare,
” his voice carried through the stillness. “They are both fine and resting now. We’re looking into the situation and if we have something to report, we’ll gather the camp. But for now, please… go back to your day.” With an exaggerated sniff of the air, he added, “Smells like stew tonight. Someone better save me a bowl, or three!” A slight murmur of laughter, more than a nervous giggle, could be heard among the crowd. Slowly, the people began to turn away and meander back to the respective homes and tasks.
“You realize it’s baked fish tonight, right?” Derrick asked with a shake of his head.
“Eh, I took a shot,” Paul retorted as the pair slipped into the tent behind Hicks.
“Nice shooting.”
The brief moment of mirth dissipated upon entry into the tent. Though there was no visible change in demeanor, a reverential solemnity washed over the three men. The small puddle of urine darkened the blue tarp that served as the tent’s floor. Yet that was the only indication of anything awry in the makeshift home. To the left, a pair of metal cots had been pushed together to form a medium-sized bed. In place of proper mattresses, the cots held patio chair cushions that softened the wire mesh stretched across the frames. Beside them, a three-drawer dresser and a smaller cabinet, while on the other side of the small living space stood a set of plastic chairs and table. Though sparse, the furniture actually made the tent feel cramped.
“What have you found?” Paul asked Hicks.
Directing the beam of his flashlight towards the far wall of the tent, Hicks supplied the entirety of his findings. “Whatever it was, it came in through the back. There’s a decent sized tear which a smaller body could probably fit through. Nothing else inside really gives much more information. Outside, I was able to find a set of tracks that leads out and away from the camp, but after about a quarter mile the tracks end. At first light tomorrow, I’ll try to see if I can pick up a trail beyond our security border.”
“What do you mean end?” Paul pressed for more information.
“I mean end. As in does not continue,” the mercenary said. “The traffic from our own patrols tear up the ground making it difficult to isolate any one set of tracks.”
“That sounds awfully convenient don’t you think?” Derrick asked.
“Exactly.”
“So, whatever, or whoever, fled from this tent used our patrol’s tracks to hide his escape?” Paul knew he sounded skeptical. “That’s not sounding like a Til to me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Could be whoever it was pretended to be a Til when the woman walked in on it.” Hicks added, shrugging.
“Best guess?”
“The way I see it, there are three possibilities. One, it was an outsider that’s observed our patrols and slipped past them. Likely the goal was to steal. Two, one of our own was up to no good. Either theft or worse.”
“And three?” inquired Paul, though the first two possibilities were already enough to unsettle him.
“Three… it was a Til that can problem solve, plan, and infiltrate our defenses. And if that’s the case, then it might not have been here to feed,” Hicks said with a voice that was marked by an unfamiliar characteristic that Paul could not place.
Though he felt he knew the answer, he needed to hear another say it. “If not to feed… then why?”
As Hicks’ stare fixed to Paul’s, he recognized what had marked the other man’s words. It was the same emotion he could now see in Hicks’ eyes. Worry.
“To scout.”
* * *
In a small community, clandestine operations are almost impossible to plan and execute. Paul, Hicks, and Derrick however, spent much of the night attempting that impossibility. The three men had exited Patty’s tent with forced nonchalance and made a point of parting in different directions.
Returning to his command tent, Paul waited impatiently for the other two men to arrive. Within thirty minutes both Derrick and Hicks had joined him at his desk, and the planning had begun in earnest. It was decided that Derrick would accompany Hicks at dawn, since the two were skilled trackers. Hicks had developed the craft during his term serving the country as a gun-for-hire, whereas Derrick had mastered the art in the years since the outbreak. Paul had briefly considered going with them, but not only would his absence be more readily noticed, his own tracking ability paled in comparison with that of his co-conspirators. With luck, the two would be able to identify the intruder’s trail and at least ascertain if he had come from within or had managed to breach security from beyond the camp.
Supplies and gear had been surreptitiously collected in the darkness of the night. Paul was giving the pair twenty-four hours before sending a search party after them. He knew though, that those hours would stretch interminably for him as he waited for information. It can’t be a Til, he had to keep reassuring himself. Tils can’t think like that. Each time he reminded himself how unlikely it was, his memory recalled the Tils that seemed to ambush his team on the islands surrounding New Cuba.
With silent handshakes, the two men exited the tent a short time before dawn. Paul sat in the stiffly upholstered chair behind his desk; with a glance at the clock on the wall, he calculated that Derrick and Hicks would be beyond the camp’s outer borders.
* * *
The two figures moved silently through the slowly brightening sky. Their steps were careful and precise, not a twig snapped or leaf rustled by their passing. Occasionally one would stop and examine something. That was when simply watching, hidden among the foliage, was difficult.
It wanted to feed. It could feel the growing tension at the base of its skull. It recalled times when seeing prey would instigate a blinding frenzy, when its mouth would fill with the expectation of devouring flesh and muscle. But those times had past now. It would remain hidden. It would wait.
Chapter Two
The black tar coating on the roof of the military building was still cool in the early minutes of dawn. Mike Allard sat upon the concrete ledge, feet dangling over the side of the two-story structure. It was a ritual begun years ago, his watching of the sun creep into the eastern sky, and over the past weeks it was one he continued to perform. He kept his eyes skyward and felt the light bathe him, a daily christening that purified and readied him for the tasks ahead. There was no temptation to look down, the scars that marred the ground were forever seared into his memory. No, for now he would allow himself to feel the peace and innocence that only existed for him in the fleeting moments that began each day.
As the dark sky was tinged with color, first pastel then bolder shades of red and orange before all faded to blue, Mike saw a flock of birds float lazily through the air. The former school teacher wondered how the world looked from those heights. He thought perhaps the world might look less wounded when viewed from hundreds of feet above. He wondered if the smell that forced him to breathe through his mouth reached up to the birds. If it does, he thought. Does it turn their stomachs, too?
There had been some debate as to how to deal with the overwhelming number of incapacitated Tils that ringed wide around the broadcast tower. The signal from the tower had forced the infected into a stupor that left them motionless and benign. Their numbers were too vast to execute them with firearms. Instead, the bodies had been gathered by construction vehicles found at the military base, plowed together into several large pyres. When Mike climbed to the roof this morning, the piles of ash still smoldered with a soft red glow that contrasted visibly with the pre-dawn darkness. He told himself that most of the bodies had already succumbed to starvation and dehydration, though likely more than a few had been burned alive the previous evening.
Behind him, he heard the metallic click of the access door closing. A moment later, Erik Lasdale sat down on the ledge next to Mike. For all his sarcasm and loner façade, Erik had tended to Michelle Lafkin as a brother to a younger sister.
“How’d she do last night?” Mike asked him.
“Same as usual. Cried herself to sleep, woke up and cried some more,” the dark haired ma
n replied, his tone flat and tired.
Studying him briefly, Mike could see the younger man’s strain from mourning Andrew Weyland, who had given his life to broadcast the signal, and tending to Michelle, who had been all but inconsolable since the death of her fiancée. With a heavy heart, he recalled when Andrew had fallen ill in the early days of the outbreak. Erik had refused to leave the boy’s side. The little man is probably the only family I got left, he had told Mike then.
“Thank you for looking after her, Erik.”
Shoulders rising slightly, he replied. “She’d do the same for me. Besides, I owe them both. They could have, and probably should have, kicked me out of their lives many times back in New Cuba. But they didn’t.”
Though Mike had withdrawn from the others upon reaching the safety of the island, he had still heard passing whispers of Erik’s decline into alcohol addiction.
“He used to get so pissed with me for drinking so much,” Erik continued. “Told me I was slowly killing myself. He was like a little brother, you know?”
“Yeah.” Mike found it difficult to speak as he listened to the younger man truly open up to him.
Staring toward the fully risen sun, Erik was silent for a long stretch before saying, “There’s not many of us left now. From those first days? Jenni’s gone, Derrick, Blaine, Andrew and his mom. We’ve lost so many people I can’t even remember them all. That’s pretty twisted, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Mike knew the answer was insufficient, but he lacked further words.
“The other day I was trying to think of the names of that guy and his daughter, the ones that we found with Andrew. Took me all day before I remembered the little girl’s name was Annie. Do you remember the father’s name?”
