by D. J. Molles
The president looked up. His eyes were hard. “But some of these decisions are tough. Some of them are dirty. Some of them are bloody. And many of them I do not want to make.” He frowned, balled a fist, and tapped his knuckles on the table once. “But I simply cannot make my decisions based upon the popularity of their results. I cannot do it. I am bound by things more serious than popular opinion. I am bound by a duty to rebuild this place, to make it safe again, and before any of that happens, there is going to be goddamned hard times, just like there has been.”
Abe regarded the man standing before him, unsure of what to think.
Briggs met his gaze straight on. “I talk, but I’m not sure I’m making myself understood.”
Abe tapped the dome of his helmet against his leg. “Sir…I’m a simple, direct man. Perhaps you could speak simply and directly. It’s just us.”
Briggs nodded slowly, as though sizing up the situation. After a moment, he spoke, and his voice was flat, bereft of its usual sonorous qualities. “I cannot be beholden to the people,” he stated. “In order for us to survive and once again thrive, and for democracy to have a place here, we have to reestablish our civilization—our civilized society. But we can’t do that with a democratic system in place. Because the people are incapable of leading themselves out of this mess. We have to first make this country a place that is safe enough to harbor democracy again. And right now, it is not.” He leaned forward slightly. “So until it is, the people who speak out against me, the people who undermine my position as president, my right to hold this office…they have to be dealt with harshly. They cannot be allowed to continue speaking out. And the tools with which I can affect them are very limited.”
“So they starve,” Abe said quietly.
The president’s lips pursed slightly. “They’re deprived of the benefits of being a part of the Greeley Green Zone. If they refuse to be a cooperative member.”
Abe wanted to tell him that those “benefits” were not meant to be controlled by the president as leverage for cooperation. The “benefits” were not meant to feed the military and be rationed out to civilians only if they shared the same political views. Those “benefits” were food and water and medicine that had come from Abe’s bunkers and the bunkers of other Coordinators, and they were meant to help people survive. Not to keep them in line or to consolidate power.
But why would he say these things? Why would he alienate himself?
He had now dug himself into a hole from which there were very few options of escape. And shouting and cursing the man at the top of the hole, who was his only way out, was not the way to do it. It benefitted no one to continue this argument. Save for his own conscience.
“Do you understand why I had to keep this from you?” the president asked him.
The president.
The acting president.
But Abe only nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Briggs looked pained. “Do you trust me?” he asked. “Are we still friends?”
Friends? Abe thought. Still friends?
As though they had ever been friends to begin with? What did a man like Briggs know of friendship? What did any politician know about friendship? It was not something that could be bought. It did not pledge allegiance or devotion. It was not an arrangement of convenience. It was not something that was given or taken away based upon mutual beliefs.
Abe had never called an acquaintance a friend. He’d been friendly with many people, but only a spare few he had ever considered friends. And Briggs was not one of them. Lucas Wright was a friend. Tyler Bowden was a friend. Lee Harden was a friend.
But again, why would Abe say these things?
So he just nodded slowly. “I trust you.”
* * *
The next few days were strange for Abe Darabie.
He went through the motions. He woke up and he brushed his teeth with baking soda and he got coffee from the mess hall, and on the second day he actually took some eggs as well. Rehydrated eggs. An odd, almost grainy texture, though he barely noticed.
President Briggs did not request his usual morning brief. At least not from Abe, though a few times Abe saw Mr. Daniels and Colonel Lineberger heading up to the top floor, chatting together like old chums. Abe resented it. He resented it to his core, though he had a hard time explaining to himself why he felt that way. He only knew that he was beginning to hate this place. He was beginning to hate what he had become.
Just an armchair commando.
A slot machine for his superiors—pull the handle and hope Major Darabie comes up with some goodies for us.
The day of his…enlightening conversation with Briggs, he’d sincerely tried to stomach it all. He’d tried to submit himself to it. To accept it. By the morning after that, it had all coagulated in his mind and left a bad taste in his mouth. Over the course of that second day, he’d picked through his feelings and discovered he did not have much warmth left in him for President Briggs.
And by the day after that, he felt that he hated the man.
On that day, Abe skipped his breakfast once again. After his usual morning meeting with Lucas—a lackluster three-minute conversation about how it was very quiet in the Greeley Green Zone—Abe went back to his room. He riffled through a dresser and found some old civilian clothes. A pair of jeans and a red fleece pullover. He put them on.
He snuck out of the hotel like he’d committed some crime and walked quietly and unassumingly out of The Strip and into the surrounding civilian area. He went to the address he’d taken from the census records and found three families crammed into the house. None of them was the Donahue family.
You know, the Donahues? he thought.
A/M, A/F, J/M, J/M? Entitled to 3,200 calories a day?
The families who lived there stared at him suspiciously and claimed they did not know the Donahues. They claimed they had lived there the entire time and never knew a family by the name of Donahue. But he could see the truth in their eyes. And his civilian clothes were not fooling them. They knew he was military.
He wandered around the civilian side for a bit. The people all knew what the families in that house had known, and when he walked upon them they became quiet and reserved. Like they did not trust him. Like he was a spy sent to take something away from them. He grew angry with them and wanted to shout, This isn’t North Korea, you fucking assholes!
But he knew better, didn’t he?
He came to a whorehouse and he stood in front of it. It looked like any other house on the block, except for none of those houses were occupied or registered, and neither was this one. It had a red sash hanging from the front door to signal what it was. Like it was a secret, though everybody knew. Everyone knew that the soldiers would come here and the women inside would trade themselves for rations. A business that was beginning to boom inside the Greeley Green Zone.
He wondered if Donahue, A/F, was inside.
He didn’t go in to check.
He went back to The Strip. Men in Cornerstone tactical uniforms checked his ID and let him back in and gave no indication of what they thought about him roaming around on the civilian side. He changed into his regular military clothes, stuffed the civilian ones in the bottom of the drawer, like he wanted to hide them.
He found his way to the mess room to catch some late lunch. He walked hollow. Empty. Boneless, like a straw man. What could there possibly be left of him when every strong thing he’d ever been and felt had been sold and given away? In the name of complacency. In the name of peace. In the name of not rocking the boat.
Always with the best of intentions had he completely lost himself.
Burning couch, he told himself. You’re just trapped under that burning couch.
He took a divided plate and he slid down. What he saw on the plate was not food but calorie counts. Rations for survival. Protein. Vegetable. Starch. Divided into the approved meal-portion size of roughly 600 calories. After breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you’d be right around 1,800 calories. Give
or take. Usually give.
At the end, he presented his ration card. The soldier in the white apron at the end typed the number into the computer, recording Major Darabie’s calorie intake for the day. His eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Abe.
“You’re down a meal portion for the day, sir.” The soldier handed back the ration card. “You can come back for seconds. Or get a double portion at dinner.”
Abe took the card and slipped it back into his pants pocket. He hadn’t really been paying attention when the soldier spoke, so he just nodded absently. “Okay. Thanks.”
He found a quiet corner of the mess hall and sat.
He shoveled food into his mouth but didn’t taste much. His mind was elsewhere.
Lucas joined him. “Been lookin’ for you, Major.”
Abe looked up, chewing. “Yeah?”
“Mess hall was the last place I thought I’d find you.” The captain smirked at him, then sighed as he took a seat. “Breaking your vows of starvation, I see.”
Underneath the sarcasm was concern. The type that you can’t just tell another man about. So you poked at it until you got the point across without actually sounding concerned.
“I just forgot breakfast. Got a little busy.”
“Sure.” Lucas nodded.
They sat in silence while Abe forced down the last few bites. He leaned forward on his elbows, interlaced his fingers. Rested his chin on his protruding thumbs. He could feel the roughness of that one thumb—the one he unconsciously chewed. He stared off in no particular direction, not really seeing anything that his eyes rested on. He remained that way for a time. Absent in his thoughts.
Finally, he mumbled from behind his locked palms. “Do you know the difference between something that’s right and something that’s correct?”
Lucas raised an eyebrow, confused by the question.
“Yeah.” Abe’s hands fell apart, slapped flat onto the tabletop. “Me neither. Or maybe I know, or knew at one point in time, but I’ve spent so long doing the correct thing, I’ve forgotten how to distinguish it from the right thing. But the two aren’t the same, are they? Sometimes they’re the same. But sometimes they’re opposed.” He shook his head slowly, exhaustedly. “You know who knew the difference?”
Lucas cleared his throat, seemed slightly uncomfortable. “Who’s that?”
“Lee.” Abe nodded resolutely. “Lee knew the fucking difference.”
Lucas tapped his finger. But he said nothing.
Abe had a million other things he wanted to say. About Lee. About the mission to take him down. About turning a blind eye on things. About the cost of your own conscience, your own pride, your own shame. About allowing yourself to whore out your own morals, for payment in the form of comfort. He had many of these things to say, and they ran through his head all at once, clamoring for attention, and Abe finally dismissed them all with a growl and a dismissive wave.
“How’ve you been sleeping?” was Lucas’s response to it all.
Abe opened his mouth to respond but first noticed the sound of rubber boot heels hitting the carpeted floor behind him, coming to a stop there. One finger in the air, as though to hold his thoughts, Abe turned and looked over his shoulder. Corporal Nunez was standing there beside him, a little out of breath.
“Major,” Nunez said on a big exhale. “Ramirez is on the line. He needs to speak to you immediately.” Nunez looked around conspiratorially. “He says he has it.”
SEVEN
The command center had two more people in it by the time Abe jogged back in. He did so quietly, and the two soldiers—a man and a woman—remained in their seats, focused on their computers, both in communication with some other element. But Abe didn’t care about anything else that was going on in any other Green Zone. His mind was completely consumed by what was currently happening somewhere in North Carolina.
He made straight for Corporal Nunez’s desk. The phone was lying facedown in front of the keyboard. Lying there like a crime scene. Abe approached it feeling almost sick with dread. But he had no hesitation. He snatched it up immediately and put it to his ear.
“This is Major Darabie.”
The sound on the other end was crackly and unclear. There was a slight metallic echo, like someone was speaking through a tin can. Abe knew that Ramirez had been equipped with a satellite phone to maintain contact. The other two times Abe had spoken to him via satellite phone, the connection had sounded similar.
“Major, it’s Ramirez.” He sounded slightly out of breath. Or stressed. There was also the sound of barking in the background. “I’ve got the device. I had to shoot Captain Harden to get it.”
Abe was surprised at his own gut reaction. For someone who knew that such a thing was imminent, it still choked him. It still made his hair stand up and his neck and scalp tingle with heat. The edges of his vision darkled just slightly.
His mouth hung open, void of words.
“I’m ready for exfil, but”—more barking in the background—“I don’t think Captain Harden is dead.”
Abe turned, heart thundering. Lucas was standing there next to his side. Nunez was beside him. They were both staring at him, as well as the other two soldiers in the command center now. Maybe they could see the expression on his face. Maybe they’d heard the tension in his voice when he answered the phone. They looked quickly away when Abe met their gazes.
Into the phone, Abe just said, “He’s not?”
Some heavy breathing again. “No, no, he’s not. I mean…I shot him in the head, but he’s still…damn, he’s still rolling around. He’s breathing and moaning. Shit…can the president clarify whether he wants me to finish him off?”
“No,” Abe blurted. He looked at Lucas. At Nunez. Knew they could only hear what Abe was saying. They would not know the context of Abe’s negative response.
Hesitation on the other end. “Uh…is there any way I can speak to the president directly?”
Abe took a deep breath, trying to keep himself steady. “Negative at this time. The president wants the device. If you have that in hand, then proceed to the extraction point.”
“I believe I copy,” Ramirez said, sounding a little unnerved. “To confirm, the president has expressed that he does not want Captain Harden dead. Just the device.”
What are you doing, Abe? What are you doing?
“That’s affirmative,” Abe said. “Proceed to extraction.”
“Yes sir. I’m on the way.”
Abe turned stiffly, hung the phone in the cradle. He straightened. Turned back to Lucas and Nunez. This is foolish, a part of him kept saying. But another, larger part had a more convincing argument: This is right. This is the right thing to do.
The implications were lost in a haze of momentary disbelief in himself. The understanding and the fear of what he had just done would come later, and it would come heavy, he knew. Like buyer’s remorse, it accompanied every decision this monumental, whether that decision was right or wrong. It would always be there, and only time would tell whether those choices were wise or foolhardy.
Abe spoke to Nunez first. “If Ramirez calls back, no one speaks to him except me. Understand?”
Nunez nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Then Abe turned to Lucas. “Get your stuff ready. We’re going to Tennessee.”
Meet the Author
D.J. Molles is the best-selling author of The Remaining series. He published his first short story, Darkness, while still in high school. Soon after, he won a prize for his short story Survive. The Remaining was originally self-published in 2012 and quickly became an Internet best seller. He lives in the southeast with his wife and children.
Photo by Tara Molles
Also by D.J. Molles
THE REMAINING
The Remaining
The Remaining: Aftermath
The Remaining: Refugees
The Remaining: Fractured
The Remaining: Book 5 — Coming Spring 2015
THE REMAINING SHORT FICTION
“The Remaining: Trust”
If you enjoyed
THE REMAINING: TRUST,
look out for
THE REMAINING
by D.J. Molles
In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker twenty feet below the basement level of his house, a soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting more than 90 percent of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyperaggressive predators with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Soon the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker and step out into this new wasteland to complete his mission: SUBVENIRE REFECTUS.
TO RESCUE AND REBUILD.
CHAPTER 1
The Hole
Lee Harden stood in the center of a knockoff Persian rug. The soft polyester fibers felt like sandpaper on his bare feet. The seventy-two-degree temperature of the room felt hot one moment and too cold the next. His cotton T-shirt clung to his chest. The walls of the room were cloying and stale. Everything was frustrating. Monotonous. The sameness of his prison buzzed in his ears and drove him mad. His body begged him to break free.
His clammy left hand planted in the pocket of his jeans while his right bounced a tennis ball in front of him. To the side, his German shepherd, Tango, sat and regarded the bouncing ball with quiet intensity, his eyes following up and down with the even rhythm of a pendulum counting the endless seconds.
He closed his eyes and tasted brine in the back of his throat. Sand crunched between his teeth and lactic acid coursed through his legs and arms. His lungs clawed for air like someone buried alive. Words punched through the riptide of blood rushing past his ears: The only easy day was yesterday!
