by Chris Lowry
“Supplies, Sir,” the man reported. “Just like we were told.”
“Good man,” Lt locked eyes with him, and Danish. “Check the rest of the cars, then clear a path. We can reach these first four when the supply trucks show up.”
“Yes sir,” they answered.
“We’re on a clock,” he reminded them.
Babe herded the three survivors out into the sunlight. Lt watched them squint for a few minutes, then went over to find out who they were.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Who the Hell are you?” Lt glared at the trio as Babe led them toward the rest of the squad.
The older man in the group blinked behind large glasses. Their clothes weren’t new, but they weren’t worn like most survivors. Lt thought they all looked soft, like good easy living and not the hardscrabble existence most people had now.
Most people in America, he reminded himself. He wasn’t cocky enough to think any other part of the world was just like this. He supposed it was, but he also knew there would collaborators.
Smarmy people doing what they could to survive, even if it meant betraying their own species, dooming the rest to die just so they could live a few years longer.
He wondered if these people were like that.
“Dr. Gary Webber,” the man with glasses held out his hand.
Lt just looked at it, and he drew it back after a moment.
“Why were you a prisoner of the Lick, Doc?”
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “I don’t remember.”
“What about you?” Lt turned to the younger man in the group. He had a shock of black hair that fell around his tired eyes, and he looked like he was waking from a long sleep.
Lt could see marks on his arms, scars and burns all the way up to under the short sleeve tee shirt he wore with simple hospital scrubs. He was barefoot.
The man shrugged.
“You got a name?”
There was no response, just the tired eyes watching him.
“Did he talk inside?” Lt asked Webber.
“We didn’t,” the Doc answered. “None of us.”
“You a mute too?” he turned to the only girl in the group.
She looked to be about the same age as the young man, same tired eyes but her skin was unmarked. Her hair was growing back after being shaved, and she chewed her lip in nervous anticipation.
She shook her head.
“What’s your name?”
“Steph,” she said in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in a while.
“You talk to this one inside, Steph?” Lt motioned to the man.
She shook her head again.
“Why were you in there?”
Another shrug. She didn’t know either. Or wasn’t saying.
“Jake!” the man said. “My name is Jake.”
The sudden outburst made the girl and Doc flinch. Babe hefted his bat.
“Jake huh?”
“Jake,” the man sounded surprised, like he just pulled it out of a memory and was pleased at finding it.
“Says his name is Jake,” Lt told Babe.
“I heard.”
Babe watched Lutz and Crockett as they approached. Lt checked on the other men in his squad and glanced at his watch.
“I got a man hurt.”
“I’m not that kind of doctor.”
“Then what the fuck kind of doctor are you then?”
Dr. Webber adjusted his broken glasses.
“I do research.”
“Research!” Lt scoffed. “Like a college doctor? A Pede?”
“Pede?” Webber stammered.
“PhD,” Lt sighed.
Webber nodded. The broken glasses wobbled on the end of his crooked nose. It had been broken recently and healed into a knobby lump on his smooth face.
“Exactly,” he answered.
“Any of you other guys got college under your belt?” he asked the squad gathered around Rook on the ground.
They shook their heads.
“See Doc, looks like you got the most egg in your head of the lot of us.
So, I don’t give a shit which kind of PhD you are, get your ass over there and try to help my man who got shot saving your life.
Webber gulped, but he pushed off and walked through the squad to kneel beside Rook.
His wide eyes studied the mess in front of him. Smoke drifted off the scorched fabric and burned skin as breath gasped in and out of the boy.
Lt eyed Steph and Jake where they sat on the ground with his crossed legs.
“Alright Chief, what’s your story?”
Jake glared at him.
“Once upon a time,” Jake snorted.
Lt kicked a rooster tail of dirt at Jake with the tip of his boot.
“Son, I got me a man dying over there and I still got to get me a whole mess of Lick heads to saw off before more show up, so I don’t really have time to measure whose dick is bigger, you copy?”
“Enough time to make that speech though,” said Jake.
Lt grunted.
Then he turned to the squad.
“Crockett!”
“Sir?” the young man dragged himself away from his injured companion.
“Shoot that son of a bitch.”
Jake jumped, startled. Steph whimpered.
“But Sir,” said Crockett. “He’s human.”
“So?”
“So? I didn’t sign on to kill people. There’s not enough of us left.”
Lt grunted again.
“Then go get my fucking heads,” he dismissed Crockett. “Lutz, get over here and shoot him.”
“Can’t sir.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Rook’s dead,” Lutz growled and rocked back on his heels.
Doc pushed back from the body and looked around for a place to wipe his hands.
“There was nothing I could do,” he pleaded.
“You’re not very good at doctoring, are you doc?”
“Not that kind, no,” Doc Webber shook his head.
“Well I sure do like a fella who can admit his shortcomings. You boys get Rook’s body ready. We’re gonna send him back with the supply trucks.”
“What about them?” Babe pointed his bat at Jake and the girl.
Lt glared at Jake, then shifted his look over to Doc.
“All of them are coming with us.”
“You sure?”
“I said it, didn’t I? We ain’t sending them back to HQ til I figure out what they’re all about. Or shoot ‘em.”
Lutz and Suds stripped what they could from Rook’s gear, then wrapped his body in the scorched remains of his field jacket.
“Hold on,” Lt called out. “Bring him over here, Babe.”
Babe nudged Jake over to him with the tip of his bat.
“Put his feet up there,” Lt ordered.
“You can’t take his boots,” Lutz protested.
“He ain’t gonna need ‘em,” Lt spat. “And this boy can’t run around in his bare feet where we’re going. Unless you want to papoose him in your ruck sack?”
“I’m not going to carry him,” Lutz answered.
“Don’t look at me,” said Babe.
Crockett, Danish and the others chimed in with a chorus of “not it’s.”
Lt shifted his glare to Doc again.
“What about it Doc? You want to piggyback shoeless Joe here?”
Doc shook his mane of thin stringy hair.
“I can’t carry a tune, let alone him.”
“Then it’s settled,” said the Lt. “Shuck them boots and finish up your prayers. The supply trucks are coming.”
With that he turned and marched to the edge of the road to meet the oncoming getaway trucks.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lt watched the supply trucks rumble away up the road. He figured the still had ten minutes before a hovercraft showed up. There had been a small debate on what to do with the engineer.
"He can go with you," the suppl
y Sargent argued.
"Now normally I would agree that was the right call," Ltd drawled. "But allowances have to be made. I shot out the man's kneecap. That's gonna make it difficult for him to keep pace with my squad."
"Not my problem," the Sgt, said without looking. "Orders. We don't bring nothing back but supplies."
"Now you're starting to pissed me off, Red," Ltd growled. "If I was to say my men are getting on that truck, who's gonna stop is?"
The Sgt looked up from the boxes being stacked in the back of a moving truck.
"My name isn't Red," he said in a snotty voice.
The engineer who had been trundled off the diesel was laying on the edge of the road. He watched the exchange, and reached inside his coat pocket.
Lt put his hand on his weapon, giving earnest consideration to shooting the Sergeant and wondering how much trouble he would be in.
The engineer pulled out a tiny snub nosed .38, put the end in his mouth and squeezed the trigger.
"We'll damn," said Lt. "Guess that settles that."
"Settles what?" The Sargent looked up from the dead body.
"If I was gonna shoot you or not."
He left the man to ponder his fate and went over to Babe and the rest of his squad.
"Babe, get Suds and Rook squared away, will you? Me and that fella don't get along too well."
"Yes Sir," Babe gave a half salute and went to take care of it.
Lt stared at the three former prisoners, his eyes dancing over each of them. Doc offered a smile, Steph wouldn't meet his gaze, and Jake just stared back.
"What are we thinking Lt?" asked Lutz.
“I’m thinking we need to get the Hell away from here first. Lick’s gonna be all up on us any minute.”
Lutz nodded and gathered the three former prisoners, as Crockett, Waldo and Leroy formed a loose perimeter around them.
“Danish!” Lt called out.
“Sir?”
“Get up front and find us a path out of here.”
He jogged ten yards ahead of the group, as the others fell in behind him. They didn’t wait for Babe, who finished with the supply trucks and ran to catch up.
Webber watched Leroy out of the corner of his eye as they moved through the trees.
“He called you Leroy? Is that your name?”
Leroy shared a wide grin on his dark face.
“Not my real one, but mine all the same,” he kept his eyes moving over the trees, searching for threats. “Lt calls us whatever he wants.”
“And you answer?”
“Like we got a choice,” Waldo said from behind him. “What does it matter what he calls us anyway? One names as good as the next out here.”
“As long as we don’t get mixed up,” said Leroy.
“Not much chance of that.”
Doc Webber pondered this for a few moments as he stomped through the leaves.
“A rose by any other name,” he finally said. “Though I think names are important. It is a way to help us maintain our identity through this crisis.”
“That the name you call this invasion Doc? A crisis?” Lt called from the rear where Babe had joined him.
Webber almost tripped as he tried to look over his shoulder and walk at the same time.
“What would you refer to it as?”
“Crisis is as good a word as any,” shrugged Lt. “War is how I think on it.”
“War,” Doc pondered. “I think we may be in a war of eradication. An extinction crisis unlike any the world has ever seen.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Lt. “I think I read me somewhere we’ve had bout five or six extinction events so far. Excuse me, extinction crisis.”
“What’s that?” Babe said in a low voice.
“Like when the asteroid hit and killed off all the dinosaurs,” Lt answered.
“They didn’t prove that happened,” said Lutz.
“It’s an accepted theory, is all I’m saying.”
“Theory, sure, Sir,” Lutz called back to him. “But there are a couple about the size of dinosaurs and overpopulation leading to starvation and the spread of disease too.”
“See Doc,” Lt laughed. “Got us a little book learning and we can have intellectual conversations all damn day. Not a lick of college between us.”
“Your rank denotes college,” said Jake.
“Well look here who decided to join the conversation,” Lt hooted. “Guess my threat of having you shot ain’t enough to keep your mouth shut.”
“You want me to be quiet, don’t ask any questions,” Jake shot back.
“That’s called the Socratic method boy. Ask a ton of questions to get the answers you want to hear. Course the police used it to trip up people and catch ‘em in lies when they was up to no good. So I guess you need to figure out if I’m trying to get the right answers out of you, or trying to find out what you’re lying about.”
“I haven’t said anything,” Jake almost tripped over a root.
“And Chief, that’s telling me a whole Hell of a lot.”
Steph nudged Jake with her elbow and he took a deep breath. The entire group walked in silence for the next half mile.
“Rook?” said Webber. “The one who was shot? Was that his name or a nickname you gave him?”
Lt didn’t answer.
“He liked to play chess,” said Babe. “But we didn’t have a chess set. Who has a chess set anymore? He started to carve one, but we only made one piece before he stopped. A castle.”
Webber stopped and leaned his hand against a tree.
“Forgive me,” he worked to catch his breath. “I’m not used to walking so much.”
The soldiers formed a soft perimeter facing out to watch the trees, while Lt and Babe flanked the trio of civilians.
“Didn’t get much exercise before, huh?” Lt eyed them. “Where was that exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Doc answered.
“You don’t know where you were?”
“A prison of some sort. I suppose that’s what it must have been.”
“Where were you going?” asked Babe.
“Excuse me?”
“I think what Babe is trying to get at is why the three of you were on that train, the only humans besides the one who shot his own head off?”
Jake and Steph exchanged a glance and shrugged.
“Ya’ll are going to have to stop that,” Lt protested. “Cause that don’t make you look guilty at all.”
“Guilty of what?” Jake asked. “Looking?”
“Like you got a secret. You want to share anything with me?”
Jake shook his head.
“I don’t have a secret.”
“Sure, you do.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“I’m telling you Chief, you got a couple of them. Secret where you came from, secret where you were headed. Secret why you and the Nina there keep making goo goo eyes at each other. Secret what you know about the Doc. Hell, that’s five good ones right there.”
“It’s not a secret if you don’t know the answers to them.”
Lt and Jake locked eyes, and stared at each other, neither blinking. The Lt squinted, his hard look trying to pierce whatever was going on in Jake’s mind.
“What do you know about the Licks?” Lt asked, and Jake looked away.
His face turned into a grimace, teeth gritted tight as his lip curled in disgust.
“Not enough,” he grumbled. “Too much.”
“That’s enigmatic,” said Babe.
“You ready to get moving Doc,” Lt asked. “We stay much longer, and I’ll start thinking you’re delaying us on purpose.”
“Don’t take my lack of stamina for anything but a condition due to confinement,” Webber said and pushed off the tree as the group resumed their march through the woods.
