But the defensive motion lit off a spark of protective instincts in Jonathan, and he sat up sharply, his head nearly striking the muzzle of the rifle pointed at him. He glanced to the left as anger and indignation flashed through him.
“No,” the man next to his bedside said sternly. “If you’re looking for your shotgun, I already moved it. We don’t need to get crazy.”
Jonathan’s fists clenched. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, his voice rough from sleep.
“We’re from North Carolina. Lee Harden sent us. And we have questions for you.”
North Carolina. Lee Harden. Questions.
A hundred thoughts began T-boning each other in his mind. One in particular managed to survive the carnage and come out of Jonathan’s mouth: “Lee Harden?”
“When you hear that name, what do you think?”
It was such an odd question. Like a survey from a pollster. It seemed so out of place coming from a face-painted man holding a rifle to him. A rifle, and a night-vision device, propped up on his helmet, Jonathan thought. And body armor.
Professionals.
Cornerstone?
What was the right answer?
Well, they’d said that Lee Harden had sent them, so that made him think that they weren’t Cornerstone. Unless they were, and this was a trap. Some sort of loyalty test.
Jonathan wasn’t a big fan of lies, or loyalty tests, or any of that horseshit. He was a plain-spoken man who expected everyone around him to be plain-spoken as well, as anything else was just a waste of time and breath.
“I think a couple of things when I hear ‘Lee Harden,’” Jonathan snapped. “I think enemy of Greeley, and I also think, how fucking dare he send a guy into my goddamned bedroom in the middle of the night.”
The man standing beside Jonathan smiled. Just a flash of white teeth in the darkness of the room. “Don’t blame him for that. He sent me to talk, and this is how I decided to do it. Tell me about ‘enemy of Greeley.’”
Jonathan felt like his brain was seizing up. These questions were surreal. “Tell you about…? What the fuck is this, an interview? You break into my home in the middle of the night to sit down and interview me?”
“I need to know where your loyalty stands,” the man said, calmly. “I’m sure you understand the position I’m in. I have to approach these talks with caution.”
“My loyalty stands with La Junta,” Jonathan growled, unable to do anything in that moment except speak his mind. “Greeley can go fuck itself, and so can Lee Harden, if this is how he chooses to go about things.”
That flash of a smile again. The man turned and looked at his companion, on Tammy’s side. “Menendez, step back and keep coverage.” As the other man stepped back to the foot of the bed, the man beside Jonathan pulled the muzzle of the rifle up. “How about some light?”
“Some light would be nice.” Jonathan couldn’t help the hostility in his voice. “I don’t prefer whispering in the shadows. I like to see the face of the man threatening my family.”
The man took his rifle, unclipped it from his sling, then turned on the weaponlight. A harsh white glow filled the room, but the man upended the rifle and propped it against the foot of the bed so it cast its light on the ceiling, giving the entire bedroom a muted, bluish glow.
Then the man did something very strange. He sat on the edge of the bed, as though he were a doctor dealing with a terminally ill patient. In the dim glow, Jonathan could see the man’s face better. The big, black beard. The dark face paint covering his features.
The man extended his hand to Jonathan, and Jonathan, completely flummoxed, found himself taking that hand and giving it a firm shake.
“Abe Darabie,” the man said. “Now. Let’s talk.”
TWENTY-FOUR
─▬▬▬─
AN INVITATION
Maclean looped back around the charred remains of the buildings, and almost snapped his stolen rifle up when he saw the figure standing there. Everything looked strange in the monochromatic grayness of dawn.
Wibberly jerked his head up and looked at him. “Did I scare you?
Maclean stepped towards his companion, looking out at the washed out landscape around them. “Little jumpy, as usual.”
Wibberley stood looking down at a water trough in the center of what had clearly been a ranch. Recently occupied. Now everything was char and ashes. The buildings were nothing more than blackened skeletons. Most of them had burned so hotly that all that remained were a few black studs poking up from the rubble, like rib cages.
The air stank of smoke. It coated the inside Maclean’s nostrils, and he could taste it, sharp and acrid, on the back of his tongue. One of the only surviving structures—likely because it wasn’t a shelter—was the big frame over the gate. From it, the brand of the ranch creaked steadily, hanging on rusted chains.
Three rockers. Which would make this Triple Rocker Ranch.
Nothing remained of it.
The garden patches had been trampled through, anything edible taken from them and the rest ruined. The fields of immature corn had been run down and crushed by what looked like multiple vehicles. An acre of what had likely been some type of grain had been set ablaze and was now just a barren scape of ash. The small silos where that grain would have been stored were emptied, and the only reason they still stood, Maclean assumed, was because they were made of metal.
“I don’t know if we want to drink this,” Wibberley noted, still staring at the dark water in the trough.
Maclean leaned forward. The surface of the water had a thick skim of ash and charcoal on it. The windmill that had kept the trough pumped and full of fresh groundwater now lay collapsed, burned chunks of it floating in the water.
“Well,” Maclean sighed, his throat dry, aching for water. “We could just consider it charcoal filtered.”
Wibberley coughed out a laugh.
There are strange moments that come upon you sometimes, when everything is just so dead set against you that you have to laugh at it. That’s what Maclean felt like in that moment, as laughter bubbled up from his chest: Like he was some bumbling actor in some slapstick comedy where his job was to be the butt of the joke.
The two men stood there looking at the water and laughing, their voices dry, hoarse.
Maclean wiped a precious tear from the corner of his eyes, stifled the rest of the ridiculous laughter. “Wasn’t even funny.”
“I know. You drink it and tell me what you think.”
Maclean drew out the empty plastic water bottle from his cargo pocket. It was crumpled down to fit better. He popped the lid, puffed a breath into it to inflate it again, then dipped it into the trough. Grainy flecks of wood char coated his hand as he pushed it below the blackened skim.
He brought it up. Held it to the little light he had out of the east. He could see through it, at least, though it did look a tad cloudy. On the one hand, the appearance of the water was not appetizing. On the other hand, he was dehydrated and desperate. So he drank.
And drank.
Until the bottle collapsed again.
Then he pulled it away, coughed once, licked his lips. “It definitely tastes like the inside of a grill.”
“Fuck it,” Wibberley grunted, then produced his own water bottle and filled it.
They drank what they could, then topped off their bottles, all the while one or both of them peering out into the dawn to see if any threatening shapes emerged. But it was like the infected knew this place held no sustenance for them. There hadn’t been a whisper of activity in the vicinity.
“Was this Lee or Cornerstone?” Wibberley asked.
“Had to’ve been that force that came out of Butler. Lee would’ve already passed through this area, and I don’t see him scorching the earth like this.”
“So they’re on Lee’s ass, then.”
“Probably. If I were to take a gander, I’d say Lee came through and gathered up whoever lived here. If he left anyone behind, that Greeley army dispos
ed of their bodies somewhere else, or maybe took them prisoner. I didn’t see a single corpse. You?”
Wibberley shook his head. “This shit is getting brutal.”
They stood in silence for a moment, Maclean wishing there was some food in this place.
“Every time you think civilization has evolved beyond this kind of shit,” Wibberley said, his voice quiet, disappointed. “Something happens and we go right back to it.”
“Can’t do anything about human nature.”
Wibberley turned himself in the general direction of north. “Greeley army is out there somewhere. I don’t want to run into their rear lines. We need to get around them if we ever hope to catch up to Lee.”
“No telling where the hell Lee is.”
“If we can get ahead of the army, find a settlement that hasn’t been burned to the ground, we might get some idea of where Lee’s gone.”
“Well, ultimately, I think we know where he’s going.”
Wibberley nodded. “We could just go straight for Greeley. Eventually Lee is going to show up on their doorstep.”
Maclean considered this for a long moment. Smacked his tongue, which still tasted faintly of woodsmoke, from the air or the water, he wasn’t sure. “We don’t have a lot of fuel left.”
“We have enough to get into Colorado. Probably.”
“Maybe.”
“Nothing risked, nothing gained.”
“But I’d like to be as close as possible when we run out of gas.”
“Of course. But there’s nothing we can do except put the miles down and hope for the best. Hedge our bets on the most likely place for Lee to be and head there.”
Maclean knew that his friend was right. They could theorize all they wanted, but ultimately, their limiting factor was the fuel. It would likely run out before they were able to track Lee down. Their best possible option was to make a straight line between themselves and Greeley, and hope that they got stranded close enough to Lee’s path that they would stumble across him.
Maclean chose not to think about what would happen if they failed.
They were in the plains states. A lot of massive, flat areas. A lot of high desert. Not a lot of food or water. If they got their asses stranded out there, their survival would be a ticking clock, and they were already hungry and dehydrated.
But sometimes you just had to throw the dice.
“Alright,” Maclean finally said. “We cut a straight line northwest, towards Greeley. And we hope for the best.”
Wibberley nodded. “That’s about all we can do at this point.”
***
The killing was complete.
And the pack had fed. They had gorged themselves, and the scent of blood and meat was still thick in the air. The Easy Prey were plentiful here, though they had not saved any of them. The pack would feed on them for a time, until their meat grew too sour.
Giant black birds circled overhead in numbers that the Alpha had never seen before. It stared up at them, its belly distended, its movements slow as it groomed the filth from its face and neck and chest. The birds would often come down and pick at what was left of the Easy Prey. None of the pack stopped them—there was enough to go around, and the bodies they chose were ones where there was little left to feed on.
The killing tide had released the Alpha from its pull, but it was still there, in the background, ready to sweep the pack up again.
It was a strange time for the Alpha. A calm had come over the pack, a scent that came from the Strange Ones and the Omegas, something that stilled their desire to fight amongst themselves.
The Strange Ones had created a den, and disappeared into it. A large place, much like the place where the Glow had come upon them, but that was not going to happen this time, the Alpha could sense that. The Omegas surrounded the den, and sometimes they would go in and out, but mostly they lay there, guarding the Strange Ones.
Others were arriving all the time. The Alpha watched them slink in, unsure of themselves, baring their teeth at the many members of the Alpha’s pack, but none of them fought. The scent of the Strange Ones stifled the Alpha’s aggression, and that of his packmates, and that of the Others that came in.
The scent was like the Glow, but not. It was the Stillness.
The Strange Ones wanted the Others to be there. They wanted the Others to become the Pack. The Alpha did not comprehend why. It simply knew. That was the purpose of the Stillness. To bring them together. To make one from many. To bind the Others into the Pack.
The hunger that the Strange Ones had, the urge that soaked their bones, had not left. The Stillness was a part of that, but only a small part. The hunger was for someplace else.
And their time to go to that place was coming. But they would not go until the many became the one. Until the Others became the Pack. And when the Others had become the Pack, then the Pack would go to the place where the Strange Ones’ hunger led them. They would move as one pack, as a tide unto themselves.
But for now, the Stillness kept them here.
The Alpha relaxed into it.
One of the Others approached a kill that the Alpha had gorged itself on, and the Alpha did not move to stop it. The Other sniffed the remains of the Easy Prey, and then began to feed. Its belly was sunken in. Its body was fatless and in need of nourishment.
The Alpha let it feed. The Other was now the Pack. And the Pack would grow strong.
It was, and what is must be right.
***
It was the last round of patrols.
Sam felt wrung out and high from not sleeping. His body wasn’t used to sleeping during the day and patrolling all night. And sleep had been hard to come by. He would lie awake all day long in the stuffy flat, no amount of blankets over the windows enough to block out the daylight, and no amount of steady breathing enough to block out his thoughts.
Every time he laid down to sleep, it seemed like he couldn’t stay awake a second longer. But then in the stillness, his mind would begin to run wild. His body desperately wanted rest, but his mind was too overwrought, too on edge to fully release its stranglehold of paranoia.
Every sound, no matter how inane, would send a bolt of adrenaline through his system, setting his heart racing and his palms sweating. Was that footfall the sound of Cornerstone operatives coming up the stairs to raid them? Was that slamming car door the sound of a troop transport disgorging soldiers to black bag his team again?
What was happening in Johnson’s head? Was he percolating on what had happened, coming up with a plan of his own? Had Sam been a fool to trust him?
Maybe I should just kill him right now. Maybe I should just nip this in the bud before anything bad comes of it.
But the time for that had passed. If he was going to murder another teammate, he would have had to do it in the heat of the moment when he was holding that knife to Johnson’s throat. He couldn’t just do it in cold blood. Now he was trapped by that decision. Forced to wait and see what might come.
It was more or less those thoughts, playing on a loop, that had kept him awake. They became stale. Over-trodden.
Like this patrol route.
Sam took a heavy breath and realized that he’d walked nearly two city blocks without seeing a damn thing. He’d been too lost in his own thoughts—the very same ones that plagued him while he tried to sleep.
He frowned, glancing behind him, wondering if he’d wondered off course. But no. His squad was right there behind him. Their faces gray in the light of dawn. Washed out. Their expressions exhausted.
Around them, Greeley was waking up. Vehicle patrols—about the only thing that Greeley seemed to allow fuel for—were beginning to rumble along the streets. Workers were exiting the places where they lived and slept, heading in clusters of hunched, mumbling humanity, to whatever job kept them safe and fed.
Sam had no comms with whoever was running the show. He had no way to tell exactly the time, so he judged it by the rising sun, and waited for their relief to arrive.
<
br /> It wasn’t the most efficient way of guarding a perimeter, Sam thought. Even if he was of a mind to protect Greeley, if they came under attack, he would have no way to report it to command. Greeley likely didn’t have enough radios to go around to the hundreds of squads they now had on foot patrol.
Sam stopped, letting his issued rifle hang, and rubbed his face. “Alright,” he called out, his voice cracking and brittle. “One more round. Relief squad should be here soon.”
The one benefit of being on the nightshift was that the streets were so empty it was easy for Sam to spot anyone monitoring them. Over the course of the last eight hours, he hadn’t seen a single suspicious vehicle or group of operatives that might be keeping tabs on him and his squad.
Did they trust them now? Or was Sam just overlooking it?
They couldn’t possibly keep tabs on all the patrols. And he and his team had done a good job of mitigating suspicion. They hadn’t given them any reason not to trust them. So perhaps they weren’t being watched anymore.
As they finished trudging along their last round—what was it? The fifteenth time they’d walked this specific section of sidewalk?—he spotted a lone figure approaching him.
It took a moment for his sleep-deprived brain to realize that the figure was going against the flow of all the other civilians, and that he recognized who it was, with a slow, dim recollection.
What had her name been?
Gabriella. That’s right. The lady that wanted to be called “sir.”
He halted his patrol as he realized she was indeed walking right for him.
He waited there in silence, a vague sense of misgivings coming over him, but almost too tired to care, or really parse through what this could mean.
As she drew closer to him, he saw that her pleasant face had a stern caste to it.
Great. She’s pissed about something.
Had he done something wrong?
Lee Harden Series | Book 5 | Unbowed Page 25