by Jones, K. J.
The group no longer cared. It was time to go.
More walking in the cold, they looked forward to it as much as getting their teeth drilled without Novocain. But it had to be done.
“We’re not going to all stop for looting,” said Peter. “A group can loot, but the rest of us trudge on. The loot group catches up. Agreed?”
Mumbles and nods of agreement. They all pulled on their outdoor gear.
“Oh, almost forgot.” Pez went to his pack. “Found these yesterday.” He tossed disposable heating pads to Peter. “For the leg.”
“Thanks, brother.”
“We got any more of those?” asked Kevin.
“Only for those who’ve been shot three times,” said Matt. Defiance in his eyes as he looked at Kevin as if to convey “I could shoot you three times and then you can have some.”
Kevin nodded, possibly getting the underlining message.
Stepping down from the warm RV, they each moaned their dislike of the cold. A breeze whipped, causing the chill to cut into their faces.
“To the north,” said Peter.
2.
Mackey still suffered altitude sickness, but he was mobile and filled with meds to treat the symptoms. Since he had free time and was not as closely monitored as the rest, he had to conduct further recon for the plan. He could not charm his way into the armory – that was Kanesha’s assignment – but he was a thief and his skills needed to be utilized for this.
For all the fanfare about military Humvees, he found them the stupidest things he had ever seen.
He ran into an unlocked Humvee parked at a curb on an interior base road. Maybe they didn’t even have door locks, he did not know, since they required no key to start their engines, and that begged for grand theft auto. Additionally, they had only four seats in them. He always imagined they would have a lot of seats for a lot of troops. He had only ever seen civilian Hummers. They could have all kinds of crazy customizations.
“What are you doing?”
Mackey withdrew from the Humvee and looked at the soldier. “Just checking out this fine vehicle. I always wanted one. Didn’t you?”
The soldier’s face relaxed. “I never liked the civilian Hummers. Too ostentatious. These, unlike those, aren’t built for any comforts. You ever been in one, Private...ah …?” He looked at Mackey’s name tape. “Private Mackey?”
“Nope. Not a military one. Did know a nig—dude,” he quickly corrected, “who had one, a Hummer, that is.” He told himself repeatedly, Talk white. “This must be bad on gas.”
“Diesel,” the soldier corrected. “They use diesel, not gas.”
“Oh, okay, my bad.” Mackey hadn’t known that and logged it in his memory. “The armor plating must make it even heavier? Worse on ga—um, diesel?”
“Oh, yeah.”
3.
They walked. And walked. And walked. Fortunately, they saw no infected, of any species. Or the tiger. Past noon, still cold, they couldn’t tell how far past noon it was due to cloud coverage blocking the sun out. They couldn't go on. Matt nearly dragged Tyler. Finally, people began to collapse into the snow one by one.
“Can't do this anymore,” said Emily.
“Yeah.” Peter leaned against a car and messaged the bad leg.
“Can't we take one of them little cars?” asked Chris. “Maybe a couple of ‘em and they can squeeze down the shoulder?”
Pez shuffled to the nearest car. Pulling open the driver’s door, he scanned the interior of the car, then sat. The key must have been in it, as they heard the starter try to turn over the engage. Just a click, click, click. He turned it off, got out, and moved to the next car, and did the same thing. They watched him. He did this to four cars and came back.
“No gas. They're all below E. Bone dry.”
Chris looked around at the miles of vehicles. “All them cars, they ran out of gas? They sat in them so long they ran out of gas? That what you telling me?”
“Explains why they left their cars,” said Pez, “don't it?”
“Explains why so few are on the ramps, too.” Peter yawned.
They looked at him to elaborate.
“Think about it. You're trying to get on the highway. Bumper-to-bumper and not moving for hours. People aren’t leaving the highway because they're scared the infected are in the towns or farms or whatever. If you're sitting there, trying to get on, you gonna keep doing that? Or look for another way? It's your town's ramp, so you figure out another road. People are thinking they're safer on the interstate, but if you're not on it yet, you don't have that feeling.”
“I sure wouldn't sit on a ramp when my gas was getting low,” said Pez.
Chris shook his head. “Sit in the dang car until you run out of gas. Crazy. Then what? Get out and walk?”
“Maybe they were doing it together,” said Peter. “Maybe the Guard came in and got them out.”
“Or maybe their bodies are under this here snow.”
“Could be. All I know is we've gotta get some rest or our bodies will be under this here snow. Again, we can’t do that out here.”
“Especially not after that tiger,” said Matt.
“Wake up getting gnawed on,” said Kevin.
Jayce said, “This is farmland around us? Won’t they have even more livestock, or attract zoo-escaped predators?”
“What else do we do?” asked Peter. “Open to suggestions here.”
“I'm freezing,” Phebe said. She tucked into Peter’s arm for warmth.
“We can't weaken like this,” said Pez. “If infected or Yahoos come, we won't have the energy to defend ourselves. I think going in is the only thing we can do.” Going in meant getting off the interstate into the interior.
Brandon pulled Emily into a stance.
“No more,” she whined.
“We gotta, hon.”
The group shuffled up a ramp to a local road that ran straight forever in both directions. They saw only frozen crop fields as if they had landed on a planet that only had cropland.
Peter chewed on a hard honey-and-nuts granola bar like a squirrel while he walked. “Under different circumstances, this place would be very pretty.”
“Wouldn’t it?” asked Pez. “Pristine snow all around. Quiet. Nature everywhere.”
“Nature trying to kill us,” Kevin grumbled.
“That’s why it’s ‘under different circumstances,’ guy,” Pez said.
Being twenty-five years old or less, and an active Marine, Pez didn’t hurt as much as the rest. His eyes and face showed brightness, alertness, if not a hint of enjoyment for the scenery. Everyone else looked near death. It had been a long time since the former Rangers had to do long-distance hump, and they were a lot younger back then, as well as better fed in high caloric intake MREs. The elk meat hadn’t been enough to sustain, and they all needed vastly more calories since they burned off tons. The growing teenagers and pregnant women felt it the worst, their bodies devouring calories even when lounging all day.
The only thing the group had in plenty was water. Pez took up a handful of snow and shoved it into his reserve water bottle, tapping it through the opening. Screwing on the cap, he then tucked the bottle inside his jacket, where his body heat would melt it into clean drinkable water. He had the routine down pat.
Tyler thought he’d take the shortcut and popped a handful of snow into his mouth. “Ow, ow, ow.” His gloved hands held his head.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.
“Ice cream headache.”
They were too tired to make fun of him in their normal manner for doing something so dumb.
Matt increased his pace to get beside Peter. “Arm over my shoulders.”
Peter did so without complaint. Canes did not work well in snow, and he could not lean on Phebe without causing her to collapse. He had mostly pain, while she was worn out. She barely picked up her feet and her face had grown pale with dark shadows beneath her eyes.
Both men watched her and exchanged a look
of concern for her. Nothing they could do but get her into a shelter where she could rest and try to fill her with as much protein and calories as they could acquire.
Emily faired just as poorly. Brandon nearly dragged her.
After what felt like ages, Pez pointed. “I see a roof. It’s got a chimney.”
They could not find the road or long driveway to the house, so they cut across a field. Dead stalks of some kind of crop crunched under their feet. The only sound was frozen stalks crunching. Even birds' songs missing. Not even crows, a winter-hardy bird, doing their thing.
“I hate winter,” Chris grumbled. “Hated winter in Wilmington. Hate this worse.”
“You have thin blood, Southerner,” said Pez. “You’re not used to this cold.”
“No man should live in this kind of cold.”
Pez laughed. “I love it.”
“Y’all Yankees.” Chris slightly shook his head, too tired for anything else.
“That I am.” Pez chuckled.
A retort, another insult, expected from Chris, but he fell silent and kept walking. Now and again, his gloved hand reached out from the warmth next to the core of his body and yanked Tyler up by the hood of his coat. The kid had begun to trip a lot.
Pez kept scanning the ground. “Good, deer droppings. We could use the remainder of bullets to get us some food.”
“Ever eaten venison, kid?” Chris asked Tyler. He received a grunt response.
Once they reached the farmhouse, they found a lot of outbuildings accompanying it. Not only a wooden barn but stone buildings of a large assortment. It had the colonial look many Pennsylvania historically listed houses had.
“This is what Mass looks like in places,” Peter mumbled, sitting on a porch chair. Mass was his way of saying Massachusetts.
Pez knocked on the door. No answer. He tried again, then turned the knob. “It’s unlocked.” The hinges creaked. A tomb quiet house inside. “I’ll clear inside. Who wants those other buildings?”
“Crap,” said Kevin. “I’m good for it.”
“I’ll help Pez,” said Matt.
Chris said, “Y’all relax, rest a while.”
“We’re waiting for you to make us mint juleps, Christopher,” said Peter, his hands tucked under his arms. “We’re sitting on the porch.”
“You gonna have a long wait then, Sul.”
While they waited, they began to doze off.
Pez returned to the doorway, causing them to wake. “It’s clear. There’s dead bodies. We’re gonna haul them out the backdoor.”
Peter nodded. “Copy.”
“There’s an outdoor electrical orange chord leading out. Tells me they had a generator going. But it’s probably out of fuel now. The pantry's full and there’s a wood-burning stove. We need to get some food into us all. Matt’s checking out their cellar.”
“Copy that.”
Phebe opened her eyes. She sat on a loveseat porch seat squished close to Emily for body heat.
“Why are they dead?” Phebe asked.
“Both have got bites,” Pez answered. “Looks suicide. They’re frozen solid. Pipes are probably frozen too. I suspect this place has well water. Too bad they’ll bust if we could get things working. It’s a nice farmhouse. As soon as the thaw comes, those pipes will flood it. Too bad.”
Pez retreated into the house. They waited, dozing, exhales out of their noses producing a mist cloud.
Chris and Kevin came around the corner of the porch.
“There a shitload of animal prints in the snow.” Chris looked at Peter with a shine in his eyes and a smirk on his mouth. “They’re pig.”
“Oh,” said Peter. “Fucking fab.”
“They’re big, too, I reckon, according to the prints.”
“Even better.”
“But no sign of them dressed as clowns.”
“Huh?” Kevin asked.
Chris shook his head. “Inside joke, brother.”
Matt came out. “Great news. We are getting the fires going, no problems. The root cellar is filled with food. Somebody was into canning here. Chris, Alden, can you two go around back and move those bodies to a barn or something.”
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “They got an outhouse.”
“As in the bathroom?”
“Yeah.”
“That’ll be good usage for us. But don’t put the bodies in there.”
“Fuck you. I wasn’t going to. I was just saying.”
The relationship between Kevin and Matt hadn’t improved.
Emily mumbled into her scarf, “I’m not going to a freezing outhouse for potty.”
No one heard her.
4.
“They’re all armor-plated,” Mackey told his group. “All the ones here. Good, since we are gonna be shot at by the guard towers. The armor plating of these is on the roof too. And there’s plating on the undercarriage, cos of IEDs, which seems some niggas are doing out there, making home-made jobbies with tripwires and shit.”
“Does that refer to black people?” asked Eric. “I’m sorry?”
“Not exclusively, no.” Mackey scowled at Eric.
Kanesha translated, “The way he’s using it, it just means people. Regular folk.”
“Though,” said Jerome, “I’d appreciate it if he didn’t use it at all.”
“What?” asked Mackey. “Man, you got a problem with everything. Okay, I’ll talk white to you, too.”
“You’ll give permission to the supremacists and you know what the hell they mean. Aside from the fact it is not a good word to be using in general.”
Mackey looked Jerome up and down like he grew a third head and burst into pink with purple polka dots.
Alden the Younger approached for the latest briefing on Operation AWOL.
“Behave, Mack,” Jerome demanded.
Mackey rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Motherfucking cop, trying to be somebody you ain’t.”
As soon as Alden came within earshot, they dropped the discussion and pretended there was no internal discord. A unified front of happy harmony.
Mullen took it as a sign of his acceptance into the group that they talked real in front of him, not changing up as they did with outsiders. Or else he was such a non-presence for them that they forgot he was there. He decided to go with the acceptance idea rather than the latter.
Once briefed on all updates, Alden left.
Mackey laughed.
“Why did you do that?” Jerome was beside himself with Mackey.
“He going to the others, complaining,” Mackey put on his over-done white talk, “‘That nigger is a pain in my ass.’” Mackey hit the -ger hard.
Alden, being full-blown Southern, did not speak that way, apart from he probably did use the N-word.
Jerome did not find it funny. He found nothing Mackey did even remotely humorous at any hour of the day. Mullen hoped this wouldn’t be a problem, and he made a mental note to talk with Eric about it in private. Jerome, though seeming to be of a leadership role, did not have the interpersonal skills Peter had had. He couldn’t smooth things over. And he took too many things too seriously. Peter would have laughed and cracked jokes, squashing tensions and creating comradery.
He missed Peter and the rest of the tribe terribly, but he tried not to let his thoughts dwell on it or he’d return to mourning their loss and deep depression. He still felt them around, though, weirdly. Maybe they were like Eric’s ghosts.
The guys once told him, “You fight for the man next to you, so he can go home to his family.” Eric’s survival was paramount for Mullen. Eric was the man next to him, and his best friend. No matter that there was no home to go to, Eric needed to survive, even if Mullen didn’t see much purpose for his own life anymore. Getting a few more laughs with his best friend seemed to be the reason to go on. Enjoying the companionship of this new group and sharing laughs and banter. He especially liked the company of Kanesha, though he was sure she saw him as strictly friend-zoned.
Dre and Vi w
ere quiet people. They stayed at the periphery a lot, and just watched and observed everything. When either of them did speak, people shut up and listened, since it was so rare they spoke at all. They chatted in low voices between each other most often. Maybe their silence with everyone else was their way of coping. Mullen seemed to recall the siblings talked more in Charleston than they had since arriving in Colorado. Everyone had their way of coping.
Personality-wise, Kanesha would make a good leader. She was better with a wider array of people than Jerome. Though she snapped at Mackey, she also laughed at some of his jokes. But she was young. Maybe because she was petite and a pretty female as well. Or maybe because she lacked the confidence in all of this unfamiliar stuff to take charge. They were stuck with Jerome, who was too cop about things.
There were others from the central North Charleston tribe with them, but somehow they had fallen away in this new clique. Mullen had a strong impression Dre, Vi, Kanesha, and Jerome all knew each other in the Before. The way they questioned Mackey told they had known him, too. A backstory yet to be filled in. Somehow, the rest of North Charleston did not have that history with them. Mullen wanted to know the story.
He got his chance when the briefing broke up and Kanesha stayed behind to look at the mountain. Mullen moved to sit next to her and began his line of questioning.
“We all grew up together,” she answered. “I mean, we’re not all the same ages, obviously. Different years in school and all. But the same schools. All four of us attended the same church. Our mamas knew each other. We all lived on different blocks of the same neighborhood.”
“But not Mackey?” he asked.
“No. No, not Mackey. He just showed up in our neighborhood one day, running his mouth, acting like he a thug and a fool from somewhere special. Somewhere more sophisticated than us Southern bumpkins, the way he acted. But he’d never say where, exactly, just some ‘Up North’ kind of statement. But he doesn’t sound like he’s from up North, ya know. Jerome suspects he’s from out west, from the way he sounds, the things he says and all. But Mackey never was honest with nobody. And he had no people.” She referred to family. “Not a one in all of South Carolina. That’s just weird. Why come here if you got no people? Of course, he came to everybody’s attention real fast. Saying things to the women. Acting just … very un-Southern, if ya know what I mean?”