The Remaining: Allegiance

by D. J. Molles

  What am I going to do?

  What can we do?

  Through the glass door, framed by the statues of two Marines, rifles held at a low ready, Harper could see the back driveway and the woods beyond. The blackness, and the vertical stripes of tree trunks. Everything looked monochromatic. Just blacks and grays and stillness.

  Were they out there?

  If we get attacked, we can’t stay on the ground floor. There’s too many ways in. They’ll have us surrounded. At least on the second floor we only have to watch the stairs. Choke points, Lee would call them. But do you really think you’ll be able to hold them off? And for how long?

  Guess it depends on how many there are.

  Movement caught his eye. Something out beyond the driveway, out in the trees.

  One of the Marines muttered something and slid down farther into concealment.

  Harper’s grip on his rifle felt sweaty.

  Something in the fire cracked loudly, making Kensey twitch.

  “How many were there?” Harper whispered.

  A slight shake of the head. “Reilly said over a hundred, easy.”

  Something stepped into the center of the driveway. Harper’s gut twisted up when he saw how close it was to the house. And then there was another, and another after that. They were close, but still too far to see details. Rail thin, though. They seemed to huddle together closely as they moved. Drawing body heat from each other, Harper thought, and it disturbed him. It was almost like they were clinging to each other. It was almost something to pity, their hunched forms like starving waifs in some war-torn country.

  And he almost did pity them, but his heart was hammering and his skin was prickling and his vision was dancing at the very edges, and he could not comprehend a feeling like pity in that moment. Just fear and necessity.

  The ones in the driveway paused for a long moment, looking around them. They seemed to be scenting the air. Harper could see the plumes of their breath drifting up and creating a cloud that hung over them. What were they smelling? The sweat of people? Could they distinguish that over the smell of their own legions of filthy bodies?

  Perhaps it was wood smoke that they were smelling.

  Maybe that’s what had led them here.

  More and more kept coming out of the woods. They were oddly silent. No hoots and hollers. No barking or yapping. Harper didn’t know what they were looking for, but he figured it was what every other animal was looking for—food. They seemed to mill around for a moment and then the milling became more purposeful, and almost as though they shared some collective conscience, the uncountable, dreadful faces of the horde turned toward the house, almost in unison.

  “Fuck…” Nothing but wind through Kensey’s clenched teeth. He sidled down into the plush chair that he was using to hide himself, now completely out of view.

  Harper no longer wanted to look at the creatures in the driveway. Because if he could see them, they could see him. So he lowered himself down, almost prone, so that his body was hidden by the same chair that Kensey hid behind, as well as the ottoman next to it.

  It was worse. Not being able to see them.

  Harper stared at the floor. The darkness on him, stifling, and yet completely clear. Transparent. Nothing there to conceal him from prying eyes. The floor was wide-planked hardwood. Mud from their boots was caked and scattered over the floor. Bits and pieces of wood particles from the coffee tables they had demolished for firewood. These were the things he focused on as he lay there on the ground, the cold floors pulling the heat out of him, right through his jacket.

  His finger danced outside the trigger guard.

  He made it lie still.

  Where were they? What were they doing? Were they going to surround the house? What if they looked in the other windows at the front of the house? Would they be able to see all of them then? Would they attack if they saw, or would they ignore them unless they moved?

  His abdominal muscles ached from being tensed, though he didn’t even realize he was doing it. He very slowly craned his neck so he could see over his shoulder and behind him. Julia was there, lying prone next to his feet. Her eyes were closed. Jaw locked. Lips tight. Her rifle was pulled in so close to her that it seemed like she was hugging it like a long-lost lover.

  Go away. Just fucking go away.

  Something thumped at the back door.

  Harper couldn’t help himself. He rolled carefully so he could see underneath the legs of the ottoman and just barely see the bottom of the back door. In the silvery moonlight, he could see pale, malnourished legs out there. They were covered in mud and deep, crisscrossing cuts on the outside of the thigh, like the thing had run through a briar patch. But that was as high as his vantage point could see.

  They’re at the door.

  The knob rattled, just slightly. A tiny sound, but the only one in the house.

  Did they lock the door? Did they remember to lock the door?

  He had an image of it just casually drifting open in front of the infected, and the entire horde just meandering their way in. More than a hundred? How many more? Would they be able to handle them if they attacked?

  He cursed himself for letting them stay here in this house. He cursed the house. That logical part of him tried to say that the house was as safe a place as any to stay and that this was just one of those unfortunate circumstances where you found yourself unexplainably fucked, but with no real cause to blame. It didn’t matter, though. Harper still cursed it all.

  Like a claustrophobic man caught in a dark cave. Cursing the little place where you found yourself would do no good. It would not free you from your prison, or make the millions of megatons of earth and stone that sat over your head go away. But you cursed it anyways, because when you’re completely powerless all you can do is shake your fist.

  The last respite of the trapped man.

  Just go away. Please, God, make them go away.

  He remembered what he’d said to Julia only moments ago. And it had all been true enough, but it felt like foolishness on his lips now and it tasted bitter. Zen, she had called him. But not now, with his heart and his body thundering with the fervent desire to be someplace—anyplace—else.

  The glass. Something was tapping at the glass.

  Then the slow, whining sound of a hand being dragged across the glass. Except it wasn’t at the back door. It was at one of the other ground-floor windows. The house was suddenly filled with the bumps and scratchings and squeaks at the windows and doors. Everyone inside was frozen to the point that they held their breath.

  If the infected started to break through into the house, Harper wondered, would they even get everyone up the stairs before the horde completely enveloped them? Success seemed unlikely. Their fate was suspended by a thin filament of chance.

  It seemed like a long time passed.

  Harper’s lungs began to burn and he hazarded some slow breaths out and in.

  The fire popped again, seemingly louder than before.

  The cacophony of noises all around them seemed to go on forever, even growing in intensity until that was all that Harper could think about. He just kept picturing one of them finally putting its fist through a window and sparking a frenzy. But then, very suddenly, the sounds died off around them. Like a rainstorm that falls furiously for twenty minutes and then abruptly passes on.

  For another minute, perhaps two, no one moved.

  Slowly, Harper and Kensey moved at the same time, Kensey peeking out from behind his chair and Harper once again peering under the legs of the ottoman, both of them looking at the back door. The glass seemed like a view onto an empty stage. The driveway stood abandoned where only minutes ago it had been filled to the brim with throngs of bodies and the steam that rolled off them in clouds. The woods beyond the driveway were once again dark and motionless. The house was completely silent.

  The only evidence that anything had happened at all were the streaks of filth that covered the back door, and as Harper rose he co
uld see that it was on the windows as well. Muddy, bloody, greasy handprints and smudges where faces had been pressed up against the glass as though the infected had been trying to see inside and determine whether this nut was worth the effort to crack.

  It seemed that everyone decided to release their breath at the same time.

  Charlie actually laughed, but quietly.

  Julia swore and stood, only to collapse into one of the chairs that circled the fire.

  Kensey was shaking his head. “I can’t believe they didn’t come inside.”

  Harper had to agree on that. “What were you gonna do if they got inside?”

  Kensey looked at him, his eyes odd in the darkness. “Start shooting. A lot.”

  Harper nodded. Apparently the Marine’s plan of action wasn’t much better than his own.

  Kensey rubbed his face like he was reassuring himself it was still there. “How many was that? Couple hundred?”

  “Probably more,” Harper said, faintly.

  “I’d guess closer to a thousand,” Julia spoke up from where she was slouched in the chair.

  No one argued with her. And Harper considered her words. It was a lot of infected, but it certainly wasn’t the entire horde that had been gathering at the eastern side of Eden for the last few days. Still, it was much more than the couple dozen they’d seen leaking across the bridge into western Eden in dribs and drabs.

  “I think they pushed over the bridge tonight,” Kensey said, interrupting Harper’s thoughts with something that had already occurred to him. “I think that was just the first little bit of the horde that we saw. Just passing on through.”

  Harper had nothing to say, but Kensey was looking at him as though it required a response. So he just swore. It was the best he could come up with.

  “Harper, we’ve officially lost our hold on Eden. There ain’t no fuckin’ way we’re gonna hold it now.” Kensey stooped to grab his pack. “And we need to get the fuck out of here. Tonight. Now.”

  “What?” Julia was on her feet in a flash. “We can’t fucking leave!”

  Kensey seemed to care very little for her opinion. “And what are you gonna do, ma’am? I’m all for some guns-blazing, heavy-combat, Marines-don’t-know-the-word-retreat, motto bullshit, but at some point in time you have to be able to recognize when it’s time to back the fuck off.” He hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. “Shit. If staying here and fighting and dying meant that we were actually doing some strategic good? I’d stay and I’d fight. But staying right now would just be stupid. We’re not holding the line until reinforcements get here. And we’re not fighting an enemy that is going to be disheartened by our resolve. All we’ve be doing is killing ourselves. Stupid.”

  “Because you motherfuckers didn’t send us the manpower you promised!” Julia was almost shouting.

  Kensey stopped what he was doing and looked at her as though he might like them to come to blows.

  Harper stepped in, his voice tight, but level in its tone. “He’s right, Julia.”

  “You don’t know that he’s fucking right,” she spat. “He’s just guessing. Until we put someone on that water tower and put eyes on Eden, we won’t know what the fuck that was.”

  “No way.” Harper shook his head. “Not with a horde rolling around out there.”

  Julia’s eyes became somewhat deadpan. “Fuck that. I’m going.”

  Harper was so surprised that he couldn’t speak for a brief moment. Then he spluttered. “Uh… going where?”

  Julia had already crossed to the back door. “I’m going to the water tower.”

  “Julia…”

  “No.” She shook her head and pulled open the door and then she was gone through it.

  SIXTEEN

  BROKEN

  JULIA HIT THE WOODS faster than she had intended and it was only the loud crunch of leaves beneath her feet that halted her for a single beat of her heart and forced her to go slower and more quietly. But she felt like charging through, heedless. She was livid. Her blood felt scorching in her veins.

  That motherfucker, she thought, picturing Kensey in her mind. How dare he just leave them? Without waiting to see if Eden was actually lost. Just expecting them to drop everything they had risked their lives for because it was his opinion that Eden was overrun. Why not give them the chance to check? Why not afford them the hour that it would take to make sure before they abandoned the whole goddamned thing?

  In the back of her mind there was a quiet voice that kept saying, You’re alone. This is dangerous. You shouldn’t be alone out here. It’s too dangerous.

  The truth of the voice did nothing to stop her from squashing it down. Anger kept her feet moving forward, though fear was beginning to slip through, like rain through a leaky roof. The woods still stank of the horde that had just passed through them, she realized. And what if Kensey was right? What if the horde that had surrounded them for those brief, terrifying moments had just been a smaller satellite arm of the larger horde of millions?

  What if Eden was truly lost?

  You don’t know until you know.

  Just like Harper said.

  It’s too late when it’s too late.

  All she knew was that people had died to get them here. Lee had come up with a plan—a damn good plan and the only one she thought was reasonably achievable and would still be effective against a threat so widespread—and they had sacrificed lives to make it happen. Now the people that were supposed to be helping them were dragging their feet, and some know-nothing sergeant whom she pictured spending the last four months in the relative safety of a guarded military base was telling her that it had all been a waste.

  Never mind Gray.

  Never mind Nick and Torri.

  Never mind all the little bits and pieces of herself that she’d murdered just to stay sane enough to make it here. The decency she’d once clung to, the sense of honor, of right and wrong that she felt could still be a part of this world if she just tried hard enough…

  Now those concepts stank of decay in her mind and the rotting of them soured her stomach.

  And all of that was just supposed to be swept aside because Sergeant Kensey had never come into contact with a horde before and was scared out of his mind? Was that it? He seemed green to her. She didn’t give a shit about what wars he’d fought, if in fact he’d fought any. This was different. This was here and now. This was home. And this wasn’t for the interests of politicians and the international economy. It was for survival. And she knew this war. She’d fought this war. She had blood on her hands and damage in her heart for the things she had seen and done.

  And now this guy? This guy that she didn’t know? Telling her to drop it all?

  Hey, little lady. Why don’t you calm down and let the men figure out what’s best for you.

  Fuck you, Sergeant Kensey.

  If he didn’t have the balls to make sure that the threat was real before he tucked tail and ran, then she would do it for him. And if she climbed that water tower and looked out over Eden and saw the streets filled to the brim, if she saw that any effort to punch through and demolish the bridges would be a waste of life, she’d be the first to take her lumps and admit that Sergeant Kensey was right.

  But she needed that proof.

  She stalked the woods. Just like her father had taught her when he’d taken her deer hunting. Slow, cautious steps. Take a few, then stay quiet for a minute. Listen to the forest around you. Behind her she could hear the steady rustle of someone else’s feet through the leaves—not quite as cautious as hers—and she wondered if it was the infected or Harper coming after her.

  She kept pressing forward. Standing in the middle of the woods trying to figure out who was tailing her wouldn’t do her any good. If it was Harper then she didn’t care. If it was the infected, she needed to keep moving forward anyway.

  The quiet voice again: This is a bad idea.

  Shut the fuck up.

  Maybe Harper was right, after all. Maybe she was being
rash. Maybe she was having a hard time controlling her anger lately—Maybe people should stop making me angry—and maybe, just maybe, she was making these decisions because there was a part of her with a death wish.

  She wished her sister was there. Marie had always been the more levelheaded one. She’d also always been more honest. Brutally honest at times, though rarely mean-spirited about it. She could rely on her sister to tell her how things really were.

  What do you think Marie would say? Would Marie agree with Harper? Would she tell you that you were being rash? Making bad decisions? Would she give you that look and say, “Come on, Julia”?

  Julia didn’t have the answer to that question. Marie was a long way away, dealing with piecing Camp Ryder back together. She was not there and would not be able to lend her younger sister any of her advice. So it was just up to Julia to figure things out. As it had been for a long time.

  In that moment she felt utterly alone.

  The fear was almost as strong as her anger now. But it was a bit late for caution. She was almost to the water tower. Or at least she hoped she was. She didn’t make a habit of being in the woods after dark and she found it to be disorienting and oddly frightening on some primal level. Like her animal brain was telling her that the woods and darkness did not mix.

  Keep on going. You’re almost there.

  The clawing fingers of winter-dead trees suddenly opened and she was standing on the edge of the clearing, the bulk of the light blue water tower rising up in front of her like some alien structure. She stopped there at the edge, surprised to find herself breathless, as though she had been running. She forced herself to breathe through her nose and felt her sinuses sting with the cold of it. The saliva in her mouth seemed thick and gummy. She spat on the ground and then remained still for a moment, listening.

  Behind her the rustling continued, seeming to follow her tracks. But no voice called out to her, though she doubted that Harper would have called after her—it would be an invitation for unwelcome company. She found it difficult to judge the distance of the rustling. One second it seemed it was right on top of her, and the next it seemed very faint, like it might be heading away from her.