A Place Outside The Wild

by Daniel Humphreys

  Patterson grinned and Rivas rolled her eyes. The two opened the rear hatch and hopped down while he headed forward to the Blue Force Tracker. Ross clambered back up inside the vehicle as Hanratty tapped a message for headquarters.

  “Hayloft is still solid, even as bad as this place looked,” Ross announced. “I’ve got Janacek up there on over-watch. Gus is covering the back.”

  “Good,” Hanratty said. “Big enough for everyone?”

  “Should be, yeah. Ladder’s loose, too. We can pull it up.”

  “Nice. We’ll leave the top hatches unlocked,” Hanratty decided. “We get swarmed in the middle of the night, we drop the ladder down onto the turret and just drive out of here.”

  “It’s pretty clear,” Ross said and settled into one of the crew seats with a heavy sigh. “Hell of a lot quieter than up north.”

  Hanratty stabbed the button to send the message and thought about it. “Lower population density in the immediate area, I guess. Couple of big cities around, but there are some good terrain features. Nice place to hole up and ride things out.” Inside he cringed. Better than what my folks had, for sure. The BFT pinged. “And command acknowledges.” He looked up at Ross. “You ready for tomorrow?”

  The SEAL worked his mouth as though he were tasting something nasty. “Haven’t fought people in a long time,” he said. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”

  Hanratty grunted. “Let’s get some overhead, first.”

  He stood and walked out of the LAV in a crouch. Ross followed, and when Hanratty was on the ground there was a thump.

  A sleepy voice cried out in complaint.“Hey!”

  “Sorry about that, Baxter,” Ross said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Hanratty shook his head and tried not to sigh. He understood the reason for Baxter’s presence, even if the other Marine annoyed the rest of the crew.

  Rivas and Patterson knelt in the driveway in front of the barn, assembling the Goshawk reconnaissance drone. It was roughly the size and shape of a manhole cover, and its four rotor housings made it look a bit like a large button. The top glittered with solar panels, and the bottom was a bluish-gray color that blended well into all sorts of skies. It was lightweight, state-of-the-art, and irreplaceable. The company that built them was just outside of Las Vegas. Even if they’d been able to reach it overland, the remaining spy satellites painted a stark picture of the state of the situation there. The infected seemed to thrive in arid environments; perhaps their decay rate slowed even further with low humidity. Good thing we made it out of the sandbox when we did, Hanratty mused.

  “We’re up, Captain,” Rivas reported. “Batteries have a full charge.”

  “Let’s do it,” Hanratty ordered. Patterson and Rivas stepped back. The former drew the slim control tablet out of his rucksack and began pressing buttons. The Goshawk wasn’t piloted, per se. It had a built in processor that controlled its flight functions. The operator determined its path through a GPS interface on the tablet; drawing a route for it to follow. This freed the operator up to be able to control the cameras the drone mounted and made it more robust for field use. Powered by lightweight carbon nanotube batteries and trickle-charged by the top-mounted solar panels, it could loiter in almost complete silence for up to two hours depending on wind conditions.

  Of course, the Goshawk had also cost Uncle Sam a cool quarter million per unit, but you couldn’t have everything. If the outbreak had never happened, something similar would have been on every kid’s Christmas list right about now, and they’d be playing with even fancier toys in the field.

  Patterson pressed a few buttons on the tablet and the rotors of the drone began to whir. After a moment, it built up enough lift to rise from the ground. It hesitated there as it downloaded coordinates from the tablet to determine a flight path. It began rising again, tilted and faded off to the southwest as it moved toward the objective. The camouflage was quite effective — even knowing it was there, Hanratty couldn’t follow it as the drone moved off into the distance.

  They crowded around Patterson as he knelt back down. If the officers peering over each shoulder unnerved him, the NCO didn’t show it.

  “Set up a repeating orbit,” Hanratty ordered. “I’d like to focus on the perimeter fortifications.”

  “Aye, sir, repeating orbit,” Patterson said. The farm they’d chosen to hole up for the night was five miles from the settlement, as the drone flew. The Goshawk was already halfway there. At a mere 500 feet above-ground-level, the picture quality was already better than their satellite shots.

  “Huh,” Hanratty grunted as the drone passed over a field outside of the settlement’s walls. “They’re farming the land outside of the walls.” A tractor was running through the field, leaving neat lines of tilled earth behind it. “What do they farm here?” Hanratty was a city boy, and not ashamed to admit to his shortcomings.

  Ross smiled a crooked smile. “Corn and soybeans, I’d guess,” he murmured. “Grew up about a hundred miles east of here.”

  Hanratty was silent for a long moment. What could you say? Most everyone the surviving service members had known in the civilian world was likely to be long dead. A lot of troops hadn’t been able to deal with that. The rest of them? Well, you just tucked it down and continued mission. Hanratty almost spoke, but finally decided to remain silent. He respected Ross, even liked him to some extent, but they weren’t friends and he didn’t know how the other man would react to any sort of personal words, particularly in front of enlisted personnel. He nodded toward the tablet. “Isn’t that risky, planting outside of their walls?”

  Ross whistled between his teeth as he considered his response. “It’s kind of a catch-22; make the walls big enough to enclose the farm land you need to feed hundreds of people and livestock, you need thousands of people to make sure the walls are secure. If it were me, I’d grow a crop like soybeans outside the walls, and a foodstuff crop like corn inside. Given that the tractor is still moving I’d guess they’re using the soybeans to make fuel. Not the most efficient use of it, but needs must.”

  The Goshawk was passing over the northwest corner of the encampment now, and the angle allowed for the study of the northern and western walls. The western wall was far more substantial and solid where the northern fence was chain link.

  “Northern fence line runs along the creek,” Hanratty noted. “Smart. Focus resources in the areas without terrain features that can act as a stop.” He leaned closer to the tablet. “Patterson, can you zoom in any on the west wall?”

  “The orbit is starting, let me dial it up, sir.”

  Hanratty let out a grunt of surprise. “Telephone poles. They planted telephone poles and used them as the frame for the fence.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of poles,” Ross mused. “They’ve got houses lined up on the inside of the wall. Barracks, maybe?” He traced a pair of bigger buildings that flanked the two-lane road that ran through the settlement. “What are those? Guard posts?”

  “Zooming in,” Patterson said and dialed the cameras up further yet. They were HD-quality, but there was only so much you could make out from five hundred feet on a moving platform. Still, some shapes didn’t need to be clear to recognize.

  “Those are .50-cals,” Ross said, in a surprised tone. “Ma Deuce on each of the guard posts flanking the road. Where the hell did they get those?”

  “Who knows how much stuff was lying around?” Hanratty said. “Think how long it took to police up all the loose equipment at Camp Perry. All it takes is one or two National Guard units getting swallowed up, and someone to stumble upon what’s left.”

  Patterson chimed in. “You like that, you’re going to love this.” He opened the field of view on the camera a little bit. In the middle of the settlement, to one side of the road, was a large graveled area. Hanratty had seen enough combines and farm tractors sitting idle on their journey from Camp Perry to recognize the group of vehicles lined up beside one ano
ther. The other vehicles in the lot needed no such familiarity.

  Four Hummers and a lone deuce and a half occupied the opposite side of the parking area. Not only that, but there were several empty spaces in the neat row. Given the order with which the agricultural equipment had been set up, he didn’t feel that it was a bad assumption that there were other vehicles that had once been there in those empty spaces. The uncertainty was bad enough, but what was present was still worse. He brought his finger down close to the tablet without touching the screen and made a circle.

  “These Hummers still have the turret rings, that’s where the guns at the guard posts came from. This one, though . . .” The fourth and final truck had a turret ring as well, but where the others were empty, a blue tarp covered the weapon mounted there. “Mark 19?” Hanratty referred to the ubiquitous, belt-fed 40mm grenade launcher that had been in US military service for decades.

  “Got to be,” Ross said. “Barrel is too short for anything but that or a SAW, and there’s no reason to leave a SAW in a turret. Nineteen’s a hell of a lot heavier.”

  “Out-freaking-standing,” Hanratty declared with a sigh. He studied the changing screen as the frame shifted from farmhouse to farmhouse, across barns converted into living quarters, fields and gardens, and the men, women, and children who moved around below in blissful ignorance of the observation. “Doesn’t change anything,” he decided. “We have our orders, and we proceed as planned. Patterson, how much time left on the drone?”

  “The wind is picking up, sir, so that will cut into the endurance a bit. Call it forty-five minutes.”

  “A few more orbits, then, and let’s bring it back and get settled in for the night. Tomorrow morning, we go in.” Hanratty shared a glance with Ross. The other man was expressionless, but finally, he nodded his agreement.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled.

  Chapter 8

  Alex usually slept great in the rain, but Casey’s allergies were acting up. The snoring was doing a great job of keeping him awake.

  After each snort, Alex punched the bunk above him, but Casey was out cold and didn’t move.

  Great. Stuck in the dark with his thoughts. Alex couldn’t remember his old bedroom, but he wished he was there now, without anyone to keep him awake.

  There were things you just didn’t think about, now. Miss Val was an okay ‘mom’ to her charges, and all the other adults sorta kinda pitched in, but it was nothing like the real thing. Alex felt his throat getting tight and he swallowed. The last thing he wanted to do was start crying. If he gave into it, he wasn’t liable to be able to stop, and that would just suck.

  Sometimes Alex hated kids like Twigs and Vikram. Yeah, Twigs’ dad had died and that stunk for him, but he still had a mom to give him a hug every night. Vikram had both of his parents, and his dad was cool as hell — he had a sword, for cripe’s sake!

  He sighed as a wave of shame rushed through him. Real nice, Alex, hate a couple little kids just because they still have parents.

  No way he was going to be able to go back to sleep now. He had a wind-up flashlight he could read with. But it would be just his luck that Val or Mr. Vance would walk by and see the light under the bedroom door. Miguel and Kevin were sound asleep in the other bunk bed, and the adults wouldn’t appreciate him being the only one awake. He actually understood that part, at least — it was hard enough getting Betty and the other weird adults calmed down and asleep without kids running around. So he was stuck in the bedroom, for better or worse.

  Frustrated, he huffed a sigh and gave the bottom of Casey’s mattress one final, sullen punch. As if in response, the other boy emitted a long snort, his loudest yet.

  Alex had a moment of inspiration. He’d stashed his iPod under the bed. If he was lucky, there’d be enough of a charge that he could listen to music until he fell asleep.

  He ninja-rolled onto the floor and peered into the shadows under his bed. Each of the boys in the room had a shallow box of personal items they kept under their beds. With a bunk bed on either wall, space was at a premium in the room.

  Not that any of the boys had much. For the first few months after their rescue, Val’s students had owned little more than the clothes on their backs. When the salvage teams had gone through the school, they’d brought back all the backpacks they’d found. It was sad, but it had been a little like Christmas, getting their own stuff back, even if the contents had been school junk for the most part.

  Alex fingered the worn Spider-man logo on his backpack. He’d thrown away the papers and folders inside long ago. The bag still worked well to keep smaller things together so they didn’t rattle around inside his box. He pulled the bag out of the box and unzipped it.

  One of the hardest adjustments for Alex had been the loss of music. Some of the most vivid memories he had of home were of his mother dancing in the kitchen as she prepared dinner or folded laundry. The details of his mother were nothing more than a faded, faceless presence, but he remembered the music.

  That first Christmas, the adults had tried to make things as normal as possible for the kids. There’d been gifts — most of them scavenged, Alex assumed, from stores around town.

  As soon as Alex tore the paper off of the music player, he had a sudden, piercing insight. It would be a long time if ever, before people could ever make something like this again. It was a terrifying thought for a five-year-old, and he’d burst into tears.

  As he’d gotten older Alex had realized that his sense of panic had been overblown. With any luck, there were millions of sealed iPods around the country. Maybe some would go bad over time, but many others would not. There was so much stuff lying around, and so few people left to use it, that he didn’t need to worry. Despite that, his treatment of the small device was almost superstitious in its care.

  He pulled the small box out and slid the sleeve off. The cardboard was starting to get a little rough around the edges but it still kept the two halves of the plastic clamshell together. At some point, he supposed he’d need to replace the sleeve with a rubber band or cord.

  He plucked the music player out and tapped the wheel. After a moment, the screen lit up, and he smiled. He had a little over a third of a battery left. That should be enough to lull him to sleep, he judged.

  Reassembling the box, he dropped it back in the bag and rooted around for his headphones. The room was dark enough that the screen served as a decent flashlight. He panned it around the inside of the bag as he searched. Where were the stupid . . . Alex froze.

  The glow of the iPod had fallen across a white patch sewn into the backpack just below the zipper opening. Alex knew it was there, but he’d never looked at it.

  Whoever had written the three lines had neat, angular handwriting — his mother’s?

  Alex Worthington

  18701 Stone Creek Lane

  Lewisville, Indiana 47235

  Of course.

  His search for the headphones forgotten, Alex leaned back against the bed. He pressed his hand to his mouth to hold back a shout.

  Memories surfaced. His mother was still a shadow, but he remembered a voice and a hand, holding his own.

  Look both ways, Alex, it’s your first day of school.

  Look both ways.

  His hand fell away from his mouth.

  “We lived across from the school,” Alex whispered. “We walked every day.”

  Casey snored again, but Alex didn’t care; his mind was a blur.

  He hadn’t been outside of the walls since the rescue, but he thought back to that afternoon, when he’d studied the area around them with binoculars. That cluster of buildings — was that his old school?

  It was Stone Creek Elementary; he saw the words every day on a cafeteria tray, but he’d never made the connection to his address. Why would he? He only rarely got into the backpack, and it was his bag, he didn’t need to study it.

  How far is it?

  Charlie regained consciousness when his wife began gnawing on his hand.
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  Despite the agony of his skin ripping and the warm rush of blood dripping off of his fingers, he didn’t process his surroundings for a handful of breaths. His automatic reaction to the pain had pulled his hand up into his chest and smeared his shirt with blood.

  He stared forward, not understanding why the world seemed sideways through the spider-webbed windshield. Then, all at once, awareness returned, and he realized. He was hanging from a seatbelt, and their Tahoe was laying on its passenger side.

  A hand latched onto his right arm and pulled.

  He looked down. His wife had reached up from her position in the passenger seat. She dragged his wounded arm back toward her blood-smeared mouth with a strength he’d never seen her exhibit in all their years together. “Sheila!” he screamed and tried to pull his arm back. “What the hell are you doing?” He met her eyes, but that sight was somehow worse than the knife-sharp pain in his hand and the dawning realization that his wife was trying to eat him. Her eyes, her sky-blue, soft, and caring eyes, were a flat, dull gray. They were lifeless eyes, but his wife’s body still moved. A hissing moan rose out of her throat as she strained to pull him to her.

  “Stop!” Charlie screamed, and yanked his arm free. Turning away from the mind-shattering sight beneath him, he scrabbled at the handle to the driver’s door and tried to pull it open. It was even harder pushing against gravity, but he got it open and snaked his forearm through the gap before it slammed back down. He cried out at the added pain. Pushing his feet against the firewall, he reached down to his waist with his maimed hand. A couple of his fingers weren’t responding, and further waves of agony began to snake up his wrist. After several agonizing moments, he popped the seatbelt release and caught himself as it rewound into the door frame. A loop captured his left arm, but that was a minor concern at the moment. Beneath him, Sheila hissed again. Probing fingers brushed against his legs.