by D. J. Molles
LaRouche watched the ground pass under his feet. “What am I then?”
“Just someone doing what the rest of us had to do.”
LaRouche thought about asking him who he’d had to kill, but decided to leave it. Clyde seemed particularly irritable this morning. Probably not in the mood to answer questions. And what business of it was LaRouche’s, anyway? It would have no effect on what was expected of LaRouche. That seemed to have already been decided.
“How long until I can eat?” he asked instead.
Clyde reached the tent and pulled aside the flap. “Soon,” he said as he gestured LaRouche in.
LaRouche ducked into the dim interior of the tent. It was spacious, and high enough for him to stand up fully. There was a metal flue that dropped down from the roof, meant for a wood-burning stove, though there was none. It was cold inside. And it was empty, save for a chair, a table, and an unlit gas lamp.
The chair stood conspicuously in the middle of the room.
Clyde pointed to it. “Sit.”
LaRouche did so. The chair was a metal folding one. Ice-cold. No cushion. But it still felt like a relief to sit in a chair, rather than huddle on the ground. After however many days he’d been in the holding cage, the short walk to the tent seemed to have fatigued him. Or maybe it was the dehydration barely staved off. Or the beginning of starvation.
Clyde crossed to the table and busied himself with the lamp. As he worked, he spoke without looking at LaRouche. “Deacon Chalmers has made it very clear that you are my responsibility,” he said, his voice bearing very little inflection. LaRouche could not interpret how the other man felt about this new responsibility. “He’s also asked that you reveal what information you can for our war parties before we send them out.”
A glow simmered against the tent wall and then grew until it was bright enough to illuminate the tent. It wouldn’t be needed for very long—once the sun cleared the trees, it would glow through the heavy canvas fabric. But at least now they could see each other’s faces.
LaRouche felt the rise in his heart rate. He avoided Clyde’s gaze, and he began to picture the men he had left behind. The men he had abandoned after… after… what he had done. But each time he pictured them, he realized they were dead. Lucky, and Joel, and Father Jim. Who was left but a few men that he only knew in passing?
Except Wilson.
He could picture Wilson quite well. He pictured him as he saw him most frequently. In profile, driving the Humvee. The small-statured Air Force Academy cadet that somehow managed to hold it together better than everyone else. The man that always made the good decisions. The only one that had ever been able to talk LaRouche down. The one that understood the seeming psychosis that took over men’s minds here at the end of the world, but never had succumbed to it himself.
Wilson, LaRouche thought. He was a good man.
Clyde turned to him, then leaned back against the table and crossed his arms. “I want you to understand something, LaRouche.” Clyde said his name hesitantly, as though he wasn’t sure he was saying it right. “Chalmers made it clear that I was free to hurt you, if necessary. But I’ve no intention of doing that.”
LaRouche’s jaw clenched for a flash. He thought of the girl with the green eyes and for the first time since he’d come here, bound and blindfolded, he thought about getting away. Then the thought died, halfway out the door. It was ridiculous. Where would he go? What would he do? He had made an enemy of the only friends he had left in the world. And now his old enemies were the only people that would take him in.
LaRouche stared at the dirt floor and said nothing.
Clyde made a tired sound. A long pause. Then: “Why are you here?”
LaRouche thought it was an odd question. “Because you brought me here.”
Clyde pulled himself off the table and walked over so that he stood in front of LaRouche, looking at him with something akin to disgust. “Yes, I brought you here. I found you. In the woods. Drunk. Sitting at the base of a tree with a gun in your hand and it seemed to me that you were waiting to die, or thinking of doing it yourself.”
LaRouche didn’t respond. It was an accurate assessment, he thought.
“But why do you think you were there?” Clyde asked.
I know why I was there, LaRouche thought. Instead, he said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean do you believe that it was purely coincidence?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do,” Clyde said. “I think you know, just like I knew, the day Deacon Chalmers found me. I think you know, but you’re wrestling with it. And the sooner you accept it, the sooner you submit to it, the sooner things will become much easier for you.”
Providence, he means. LaRouche stared straight ahead into nothing. Destiny.
Was I destined to be here? Was everything purposefully leading to this?
It was a slippery rationale. It had a dangerous way of soothing the conscience.
“What were you going to ask me?”
Clyde pushed his glasses up onto his nose again. “Just about the people you came from.”
LaRouche met the other man’s gaze. “You know about them. Or at least Deacon Chalmers does. You had one of our guys. You tortured him. Carved words in his chest. Shot him dead. Nick was his name. I’m sure he told you everything you need to know.”
Clyde sniffed, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know him. Didn’t deal with him. I’m sure Deacon Chalmers would know more about it. He generally supervises… those types of things.”
“Then he’ll know about the people that I came from,” LaRouche said with some finality. “I’ve got nothing else to add about that.”
“You know that he’ll expect you to cooperate.”
“I feel like I have.”
Clyde’s eyes narrowed. A man inspecting a chessboard for his best move. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a knife. For a split second, LaRouche thought that the man aimed to use it on him. To extract information. Would it be so different from the man that LaRouche had captured? The man that LaRouche had strung up by a rope and burned with a cigarette lighter? The man he had murdered in cold blood when he knew he would get no more information out of him?
But instead, Clyde put the knife to LaRouche’s bindings and he cut through them, freeing his hands. Then he folded the knife again and put it back into his pocket. He straightened and found eye contact with LaRouche.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he said simply. “But if you walked away right now, where would you go? Would you go back to them? The people you’re trying to protect. Would they take you back? Would they forgive you for what you did?”
LaRouche stared at his wrists. His free hands. He twisted them around. Worked the joint. They felt painful and stiff. Then he rested his hands on his legs, palms down, and thought about Clyde’s question for a very long time, though he already knew the answer. He knew the answer, but he had yet to voice it. He had yet to speak it into reality.
And he still did not. He simply shook his head.
Clyde put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s past is past,” he said. “We are your family now.”
THREE
EDEN
HARPER DIDN’T WANT TO RUN.
He forced himself to walk. Stiff. Tense. Eyes wide and his whole body buzzing with sudden and heart-palpitating fear. Down the narrow alley. Red brick walls to either side. No windows. No doors. The ground underneath his feet was paved with red brick as well. Just a big blur of red brick, somewhere in the town of Eden, North Carolina. He kept moving forward, his back to the entrance and the street beyond. His back to the threat.
Don’t run, stay calm, don’t run…
Because running would be loud.
The footsteps would pound and echo. His rifle magazines would jostle and clank together. Bad idea. Best to just walk. Slow and steady wins the race. Stay calm and collected. What was that thing Lee always said? Something about slow and fast… slow was fast… no…
Slow
is smooth. Smooth is fast.
Yeah, that’s it.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
But then, about halfway down the alley, when the teetering scales of speed versus quiet equaled out, he broke into a sprint. It was sudden. Surprising to even himself that he could move that fast when only an hour ago he’d been so stiff he could barely pull himself upright after a shitty night’s sleep. But he did it, and he did it fast, breath clenched in his belly, one giant cringe from start to finish.
He reached the end of the alley and turned.
A rifle stock almost slammed him in the face.
Julia pulled back at the last minute, glaring at him. “Don’t come runnin’ up on me…”
“Shh!” Harper hissed.
The irritation fled from her features, replaced by concern. Whispering, she said, “Are they…?”
Harper nodded. He let his breath out in a slow, shaky exhale. Took in fresh oxygen. Then he looked around the corner that he’d just turned. They were just a few blocks from where the river bisected the city of Eden. The building they were huddled behind was some boutiquey shop—the kind that Annette used to get lost in for hours.
Behind the shop, where Harper and Julia hid, was a natural area long overtaken by weeds, brown and dead with autumn and disrepair. A stone fountain and benches sat overgrown and unused. A fence ran along the border of it. Maybe it had been a backyard at one point. Maybe a neighborhood park. Now it was just camouflage for a man and a woman trying not to be noticed.
Where Harper stood, on the back side of the business, there was a wrought-iron gate. On the street side of the alley, there was a wooden gate. Harper had propped the iron gate open with a loose brick so that it wouldn’t creak so noisily when he opened and closed it. The wooden gate on the other side was completely ripped off its hinges. Pieces of it were in the street. Harper wasn’t sure how that had happened.
Something had died in the boutique shop, Harper was pretty sure. And somewhat recently. Just standing next to the place, he could smell it. Not all the time, but when it hit him, it was like a gut-punch.
I knew this was a fucking bad idea… shitfire!
But it hadn’t exactly been his idea.
He’d awakened that morning with no intention of creeping into Eden and trying to get a closer look at how many infected had crossed the river and infiltrated the town. But then Charlie Burke, one of the remaining seven of his rapidly dwindling team, had decided today was the day to do some recon.
Harper didn’t want to do the recon, but he couldn’t stand the thought of more of his people throwing themselves into harm’s way. Nor could he let them see how fearful he’d become. So he lied to Charlie and told him that he’d been thinking about doing the same thing. Then he’d packed his things and made for the door.
And then, of course, Julia had insisted on coming along.
So his plan to keep his team out of danger had backfired. Now instead of Charlie being in the shit, it was him and Julia.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
In the silence of his own thoughts, he could hear something snuffling around at the mouth of the alley. He and Julia stayed frozen on the back side of that boutique, surrounded by lifeless plants, leafless trees, overgrown flowerpots. He wanted to turn and see what Julia was doing, wanted to take the litmus test of her expression, but was afraid to take his eyes off the mouth of the alley.
More snuffling.
Something leaned into view. Picked at a few pieces of debris with a long, lanky arm, then disappeared again.
There’s your closer look, you stupid fuck.
You satisfied? Now get back to camp before you get more of your people killed!
Deep breath in. Let it out.
It wasn’t that he was so terrified of one infected. But he knew that it took only one screech, one howl, and then the whole damn horde was rushing toward them. And that did terrify him.
He turned to Julia. She stood there, clutching her rifle in front of her chest in a pale, bloodless grip. Her dusty, yellow-brown hair hung in unwashed and unkempt strands around her face. Her features, once soft, were now locked and hard. Blue eyes intense.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “We’re good. But they’ve come across.”
Julia swore under her breath.
“Yeah, I know…”
He was interrupted by the sound of something running down the alley.
Feet slapping. Breath heaving. Growling.
Harper was able to turn just in time to see it shoot out of the alley and slam into Julia. His rifle snapped to his shoulder but he had the presence of mind not to pull the trigger when the thing and Julia were so close. Julia had managed to angle her body and get her rifle between herself and the infected, and they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, the air coming out of Julia in one sharp syllable of blunt-force pain.
Harper lurched out to grab at the thing, but the second that Julia and the infected hit the ground, she bridged her back and rolled the thing beneath her. He tried to adjust for a better angle, wanting to shout, but conscious of drawing more attention, so he just kept hissing, “Pin it! Pin it!”
She thrust the rifle downward, the top of the chamber sliding beneath its gaping jaw and cutting a shriek off into a choking, gasping sound. Its hands were like talons, taking swipes at her. Harper decided to forget about taking the shot. He needed to get in there.
He dove in, adding his weight to Julia’s on the thing’s throat.
The three beings, fighting to death in a strange sort of silence, punctuated by sharp breaths and the sound of boots scraping the bricks, and bare feet slapping the ground as the creature began to try to spasm its way out of their control.
Harper tried to think of ways to kill it.
Then he decided that they should just choke it to death.
But that could take time…
Julia’s hand shot out and grabbed the brick that Harper had used to prop the gate open. Then she smashed it into the thing’s face. Almost instantly, the writhing seemed to stop, though the body still felt rigid beneath them. All the muscles clenched. Except its jaw. That was still snapping, the teeth clacking loudly. Julia hit it again, then raised her arm for another blow. But the last one had caved its temple in. Malformed the face. Thick blood that Harper thought looked more pink than red began to come out of its nose. Blood, and other things. Gray things. Like worms. Coming out of its ears now, too.
Its eyelids were fluttering, but the jaw was clamped shut now.
No other movement besides that.
“Holy fuck,” Julia said breathlessly, dropping the brick.
Harper gasped for air. Looked behind them to make sure no other unwanted guests were on the way. The alley stretched out. Narrow. Dark. Empty. He rolled off the thing, standing up and feeling the beating of his own heart like a loose engine knocking around inside a car. It almost hurt. It did hurt.
“Harper?” Julia asked, standing up, still breathing hard. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said thickly. “I’m good. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
They fled the scene like murderers, though guilt wasn’t what drove them. Not anymore. It had never been the case for Harper, but for a while there, Julia had been on the fence. Where exactly is the moral line between killing and murder? When do you get to decide when an insane person needs to die? Does a person ever stop being a person?
Pointless arguments, now. Morals were the luxury of the civilized.
They slipped through the natural area, out the back, and found themselves in the parking lot they had been through earlier. They crouched at the bumper of an abandoned pickup truck that still smelled of gasoline fumes and rusting tools. Both of them looked around, looked to see if anything else might see them. But it was quiet. At least on this street, Eden seemed abandoned.
They hurried through the parking lot and out onto the street. It curved away to the right and to the left it was nothing but some huge warehouse for things unknown. There was a s
ign on the gate that said weapons were not allowed on the property. Also a sign that detailed the hours for RECEIVING, but no other indication of what the warehouse held. It had a nice fence around it with a barbed wire top. Might have been a good choice for a base of operations, but now it was a little too close to danger.
They made it down the road and around the building, to the bridge over the Dan River. There they could see the Humvee sitting and waiting for them. Harper couldn’t help himself, but he stared into the windshield as he ran toward it, always half-expecting to see a stranger in the driver’s seat, or splashes of gore from the driver he’d left.
But as he drew close he saw that it was just Dylan Harmon, one of the few that was still left alive out of Harper’s team. Rumor had it that Dylan had been somewhat romantic with Marie back at Camp Ryder, and had volunteered to keep an eye on Marie’s sister Julia, or some such nonsense. At first Harper had resented it, but since then he had come to realize that he was not the best at keeping his team alive. Half of them were dead.
Poor choices, perhaps.
Bad leadership, perhaps.
Too many risks taken.
Still, Dylan was a decent guy, Harper supposed. A little redneckish, but decent.
Harper just wanted his old team back. He wanted Nate and Devon back.
He climbed into the front passenger seat of the rumbling truck, planting his rifle between his legs and then leaning back, taking big gulps of air. He didn’t want to close the door just yet—he needed the cold outside air. He wanted to put his hand to his knocking chest, but didn’t want to admit to himself how frail that would look. There would be questions about his heart, and that was ridiculous.
He knew he was approaching the proverbial hill, but felt like he was still too young for that shit.
“You okay, boss?” Dylan twanged.
Harper forced himself to nod and closed his door. “Yeah. I think I’m a little dehydrated. That run hit me harder than I thought.” As Harper spoke, he noted how fidgety Dylan seemed. Like he had something else to say and was waiting for his first opportunity to spill it out.