by D. J. Molles
Lee knelt down and sat back on his heels. He waited for emotion to overcome him, but it didn’t. He knew this was just how his brain worked. He would feel it later, in the cold quiet of the night, as he was trying to sleep. The bad memories always waited until the water was calm before they floated back to the surface.
He whispered into his closed fist, “What did you do, Jason?” Jason would never answer. Nor would his family. Tango stood at the door and chuffed, as though trying to get Lee’s attention. Lee gave Jason one last look and then stood. “Stay, Tango.” He didn’t want the dog walking through the broken glass. Chances were he’d be fine, but Lee didn’t have access to a vet or vet supplies if Tango got injured. Lee grabbed a throw blanket from over the top of the leather recliner that Jason would never use again. He tossed the blanket over the broken glass. “Come on.” He clicked his tongue.
Lee didn’t want to search the house. He didn’t want to be anywhere near it anymore. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to leave. But he pressed on, feeling dazed. He still had a job to do. He had to clear this place. Marla and Stephanie deserved to be laid to rest. He could do that much for them.
Tango walked carefully over the blanket. Lee led the way through the kitchen to the hallway. Tango was less interested in these bodies than he was in the girl lying on their front porch, but Lee told him to “leave it” anyway. He wasn’t sure whether Stephanie and Marla had been infected prior to being killed.
He made his way down the hall, the morning light just illuminating family photos that hung on the walls. Lee took down a recent one. All three of them close together, smiling. He didn’t hang the picture back up but laid it on the ground, propped against the wall.
He checked the living room, which was clear, and then headed up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, in the master bedroom, Lee found where Jason had been hiding, rotting in his insanity, his brain eaten away to only the most basic life functions. The candle Lee had seen flickering from outside still sat on a nightstand, burning with barely two inches of candle left jutting out of a pool of melted and rehardened wax.
The bedsheets were smeared in blood. Lee wasn’t sure whether it was from one of the girls or from the apparent self-inflicted wounds to Jason’s face. Lee steered clear of it.
In the master bathroom, he discovered something else.
On the large mirror over the double sinks, I’M SORRY was written in blood, over and over. It was also written on the walls and on the countertops. Lee thought that perhaps Jason had managed a moment of clarity amongst all the violent, insane urges that took the lives of his family and had realized what he had done. Lee pictured him there, staring at his reflection in hatred, cutting his face with the meat cleaver and using the blood that seeped out to write his message on the walls. He wondered how long that moment of understanding had lasted before he slipped back into madness and was merely writing the words out of repetition, not comprehending what they meant or what he’d done.
Lee left the bedroom, feeling light-headed. He checked on the bodies to make sure none had moved, which, of course, they hadn’t. Then he made his way to the basement, and from there to the garage. He took a shovel and tossed it out the garage door into the backyard. He then went back upstairs. He took Stephanie first, cradling her very carefully in his arms, as though he didn’t want to wake her. If he held the head up so the chin nearly touched the chest, he could barely see the gaping neck wound.
Even through the gas mask, the stench made him retch several times. He laid her down in a flat spot in the backyard, just before the yard sloped off. He then took Marla’s body out, dragging this one by hooking his fingers under her arms. He laid her down next to her daughter.
Then he stood there and thought for several long moments about whether or not to bury Jason with them. He must have come home before they left for the FEMA camp. It wouldn’t make sense for them to stick around once he’d come home, so he would’ve had to be already infected and symptomatic. He knew Jason worked twelve-hour shifts, but perhaps, in the emergency, they had kept everyone on for twenty-four hours. He had either become infected a few days before somehow finding his way home, or he had been grossly exposed, causing the plague to metastasize faster and mentally crippling him far sooner than he had thought it would.
Lee decided the plague was to blame, not the man.
If there was a heaven, Jason was in it for the things he’d done in his life, not for the things he had done while his brain was halfway eaten away. He deserved to be buried next to his family. He had loved them both immensely, and Jason the man would not have been capable of harming them.
Lee made his way back up to the house and knelt over the body of the man who had once been Jason. He noted that he was still in full uniform. Jason would have known he was infected, either through trauma resulting in gross exposure or due to the presence of symptoms. In either case, Lee felt that Jason had returned to see his family one last time before dying, not realizing that FURY was about to turn him against them.
Lee went through the two front uniform pockets, finding a crumpled note. The handwriting was shaky at best, scrawled in black ink.
If I am dead, please give this note to Marla and Stephanie Peterson at 110 Morrison Street. Steph and Marla, I was bitten in the arm by someone infected with the plague. This was earlier today and already I am showing symptoms. I tried to get home to see you both one last time, but I guess I didn’t make it. Please know that I love you both and if I knew that I would end up leaving you forever, I would have never left the house to go to work. I’m so sorry.
Your husband and father
Lee rolled up Jason’s sleeve. The right arm seemed fine, but there was a thick bandage on the left. He peeled it back and revealed a deep bite mark in the forearm, just above the wrist.
In his death, Jason had proven himself useful again, providing Lee with an invaluable piece of information: Gross exposure would result in becoming symptomatic within hours, and “turning” presumably soon after that. In a way, Lee felt relieved. If FURY bacteria had been on the knife the girl had used to stab him with the previous day, he would have been grossly exposed and already showing symptoms.
After folding the note and putting it back in Jason’s shirt pocket, he grabbed him by the feet because it was the least bloody part, and then dragged him outside. What was left of Jason’s head unceremoniously bounced down the stairs. Lee would have liked to give him more dignity, but under the circumstances, he felt that burying the bodies was the most dignity he could provide.
CHAPTER 6
Sam
It took him two hours to dig a hole wide enough for all three of the bodies to lie shoulder to shoulder. The depth was short of six feet but deep enough to cover them for quite a while. The soil in the backyard wasn’t bad, but after a few feet he’d hit the base of southern red clay that was near impossible to dig through without power tools. Despite the difficulty, he continued digging for another foot before he had exhausted himself.
Now it was almost 0900 hours.
The sun was already blazing, as he had predicted. His go-to-hell pack, chest rig, and M4 were propped in the dirt, next to the bodies. His combat shirt was dirty and soaked with sweat. Tango was lying beside Lee’s equipment, completely ignoring the dead bodies, panting and watching Lee work.
Lee tossed the shovel out of the hole and climbed out. He broke open a bottle of water, drank half, and gave half to Tango. The dog lapped eagerly at the mouth of the bottle as Lee slowly dribbled the water out.
He laid Marla in the ground first, then Jason. Then, between them both, he set Stephanie down. The three of them together made him think of the family portrait inside the house.
Before shoveling in the dirt, Lee decided to take Jason’s duty firearm and the two spare magazines from his belt. It was a Smith & Wesson M&P .40 caliber. A decent round, right between 9mm and .45 caliber on the power scale. He put these items in his go-to-hell pack, then got to shoveling.
When he
had shoveled the hole full and tamped down the dirt, he went inside and retrieved the family photograph he’d looked at earlier. He thought about removing the photo and keeping it as a reminder of the good times but decided it should remain with the Petersons. He placed it on the ground to mark their graves.
He was in the process of gearing up again when Tango suddenly stood, his ears erect. He looked around, then pivoted in the direction of Morrison Street and let out a low growl.
Lee froze in place, ceasing all movement and listening hard for whatever it was that had Tango all perked up. After a moment of hearing nothing out of the ordinary, Lee quickly clipped his chest rig in place, then slung into his M4. He knew better than to dismiss a warning from Tango. He grabbed his go-to-hell pack by a shoulder strap and sprinted as quietly as he could for the Petersons’ house.
He flew fast up the stairs and into the living room, wishing there was a way to secure the shattered sliding glass door. He went down the hall to the front door, checked to ensure it was locked, then peered out a nearby window. Beside him Tango whined and pranced around, sensing Lee’s tension.
Lee took the moment he was at the window to pull his pack on and tighten up the straps. He watched for another minute, not seeing anything. “What did you hear?” Lee broke away from the window and quickly ascended the stairs to the second level. He turned left, away from the master bedroom and into Stephanie’s bedroom. Everything was pink and flowers and princesses. If Lee had a moment to let his heart break, he was sure it would have.
The blinds were open, revealing an elevated vantage point of Morrison Street. Now he heard something. An engine? Definitely the sound of someone yelling… or screaming. It sounded like a man… make that men. Like catcalls. What Jason might have called “hootin’ and hollerin’.” And the engine was definitely there. A revving engine, something powerful, like a V-8.
The view of Morrison Street was narrow. Between the Petersons’ house and Lee’s house was a thick strand of forest that blocked any view of the road to the south. And Lee simply could not get a decent angle on the road to the north, though he knew there were no trees blocking it in that direction.
Coming from the south, on Morrison Street, Lee could see a red vehicle flash through the trees, and then finally come into view. It was a red pickup truck, a big dually with large off-road tires. In the back were two men armed with long guns, though he couldn’t tell whether they were rifles or shotguns. Lee couldn’t see through the windows of the vehicle and couldn’t tell how many more were inside. The pickup truck slowed. The men appeared to be looking for something.
Lee felt his heart pounding his entire body.
The men in the back began pointing wildly toward the wood line. The pickup truck revved and lurched forward, lumbering off the road, causing one of the men in the bed to nearly fall out. Lee looked into the southern wood line. Bursting out of the trees were two figures, a man and a boy.
Lee swore and pressed himself against the pink bedroom wall, keeping an eye on the two figures running. They were running in the distinct way that a rabbit runs from a pack of hounds. He leaned forward and saw the pickup truck skidding to a stop, kicking up dirt and grass. They were about a hundred yards from the two fleeing figures. The doors to the pickup truck opened and the two men in the back hopped out. Three more men exited the vehicle, all armed with what appeared to be shotguns and hunting rifles.
The man and boy had been making for the house but clearly knew they wouldn’t make it. They had stopped running and the man stood, chest out, facing the five armed men from the pickup. The boy, barely in his teens, huddled behind the man who Lee presumed was his father.
The armed men slowed their walk to a strut and began talking loudly and laughing. Taunting. They fanned out as if preparing to flank the man and his boy. Lee couldn’t make out the details of the conversation but heard the words fuck and pretty little boy and that was enough.
“Tango, come.” Lee bolted out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the back door. Tango followed him eagerly.
Lee told Tango to stay a few feet back, then took the southwest corner of the house and peered around the brick and mortar base. Beyond the overgrown grass, Lee could see the father still shielding his son but sidestepping toward the house. The man appeared to be fumbling in his pocket for something and finally produced what looked like a small silver revolver.
“Don’t…” Lee whispered, fishing through a pocket in his chest rig and retrieving a 3x magnifier that he quickly attached to his M4, directly behind his scope.
The man pointed the revolver at the approaching gunmen and yelled, “Get the fuck back! I will shoot you!” The man spoke with a thick accent that Lee pegged immediately as Arabic.
One of the men from the pickup, presumably the leader, spoke. “If there were any bullets in that thing, you would have shot us already.”
Lee found the man’s cold logic bore the ring of truth. He figured the revolver was empty, carried for show, or possibly in the hopes of eventually finding ammunition for it.
The leader raised a hunting rifle and pointed it at the man. “And we don’t want you anyway, you Hadji fuck.”
The Arabic man’s head snapped back, and a red mist spewed out. He toppled backward. The boy reached out for his father, then withdrew his hand and turned in Lee’s direction, running at full sprint. Close behind the boy, the five men all started laughing and jogging after him.
Lee had very little time to work.
As the boy cleared the corner, Lee grabbed him up, lightning quick, and clamped a hand over his mouth before he could scream. He pulled the boy in close—he could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds—and whispered harshly in his ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here to help you.” That was all he had time for. The boy went limp, and Lee hauled him up, wondering if he’d fainted.
Holding him with one arm, Lee sprinted for the trees with everything he had. His best bet was to be at the bottom of that hill before the men from the pickup cleared the corner. The horizon of the hill would hide them and the attackers would naturally assume the boy had gone into the house and would waste time searching it while Lee found them a better spot to hide.
His lungs heaving and legs burning, Lee made it to the hill and let his downward momentum take over. Tango ran beside him, looking up curiously at the boy. Lee listened past the pounding of his own heart in his ears for a surprised yell or anything that would tell him he had been discovered.
He made it to the bottom of the hill but didn’t stop. He made for the shallow gully and the stream. If he hit the stream he could use that like a highway and take the boy to a point of relative safety, though he kept thinking about the fat fuck who had shot this boy’s father.
Reestablish law and order.
Another mission objective.
He remembered the sociology professor who had taught the Coordinators about different theories of how the world would be after a social collapse. “Swift and brutal justice will be the only way to break through the chaos. You will have to strike terror into not only those who have done wrong, but also into those who are even thinking of doing wrong. You have to be the bogeyman they check for underneath their beds. What I’m talking about isn’t arrest and trial by jury. Those techniques are only applicable in a civilized world. I am talking about merciless execution. Putting a bullet in the back of someone’s head for something you’d receive a citation for nowadays. I hope you are all ready to do this, because in the post-collapse world, anything less is weakness.”
Fine by me, Professor Thompson.
Lee made it to the creek bed and knelt down on his knees. He propped up the boy, who looked a little dazed, and shook him. “Hey! Wake up, kid!”
The kid looked at him, still confused.
“You understand me? You speak English?” The kid nodded. “Okay, come on. We have to run a little farther.” Lee grabbed the kid by the hand while Tango stuck his wet nose in the kid’s face to see what smells Lee had been ke
eping from him. Lee swatted his nose away. “Leave it, Tango. Come on.”
Lee ran hunched over to keep his upper body under the edge of the gully and out of sight. They ran for perhaps another hundred yards, until Lee could not see the house anymore. He found a fallen tree just over the top of the gully. The root system created a natural cave of dirt. Perfect to hide the boy.
Lee rolled over the side of the gully, then hauled the boy up. Tango followed with a swift jump and sniffed around the area. The boy was out of breath. Lee slung the go-to-hell pack off and set it on the ground in the little dirt cave. He patted the top of the bag. “Come here, kid. Sit down.”
The boy shuffled over, obviously scared. Either the water from the stream had splashed up on him or he had wet his pants. Lee didn’t blame him if he had. He’d seen grown men piss their pants in less harrowing situations.
When the boy had sat down on the pack, Lee knelt down again so they were at eye level. He checked the boy over to make sure he wasn’t wounded anywhere. “What’s your name, buddy?”
“Sameer,” he said between breaths. “Everyone calls me Sam.”
“Okay, Sam.” Lee finished checking him over. No apparent injuries. “Are you thirsty?”
Sam nodded.
“Here…” Lee motioned for him to stand, which he did. Lee fished out a couple of water bottles, giving one to Sam and keeping the other. He uncapped it, drank two long gulps, then splashed some of it on his face. He dove back into the pack and pulled out the M&P .40 he’d taken from Jason.
Sam seemed nervous about the weapon. “How old are you, Sam?” Lee checked the weapon to make sure a round was loaded.
“I’m almost thirteen.” Sam seemed to do a few calculations in his head. “Next month.”
“Really?” Lee smiled and hoped it was convincing. “I thought you were sixteen. You look pretty old.”
