by D. J. Molles
Eddie nodded. “Yeah. We heard it wasn’t as bad out by the coast.”
“Hmm.”
“Where’d you hear that from?” Harper looked back momentarily.
“Just…” Eddie shrugged. “From other people.”
“Look.” Lee pulled out his nearly empty magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. “I’m not trying to deter you from chasing your dreams. I’m just telling you how I believe it is. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that things are any better in other regions.”
“In fact,” Harper said, “we’ve heard the opposite. According to people coming out of the coastal region, there’s a group called the Followers…”
Julia threw him a sharp look. “Don’t fill their heads with that crap, Harper.” Looking back to the family, she shook her head. “It’s nothing but unsubstantiated rumors. Bogeyman stories.”
Lee cleared his throat and continued. “Regardless, if you’re determined to continue looking out east, we won’t hold you back. I’d like for you and your family to at least stay a few days in the camp before you head out.” Lee looked at him. “I was also hoping you might look at some things for us. We have several diesel machines. It’d be great if you could make sure they’re in good working order before you go. I don’t know when I’m gonna come across another diesel mechanic.”
Eddie nodded emphatically. “Right. Yes. Of course.”
Julia interjected. “Excuse me. I need to check you too, sir.”
Eddie showed her his arms. “I haven’t been bitten. I swear.”
Julia smiled, but Lee could see it was strained. “We just have to check. Look straight ahead, please.” She flashed the light in both eyes, watching the pupil dilation. “Open your mouth and say, ‘Ah.’ ”
He complied. Julia shot Lee a little look but nodded that he was good to go.
“You say you guys came from the Winston-Salem area?” Lee started again.
“Yeah.”
“How are things there?”
“Bad. Winston-Salem and Greensboro… man, there’s just not much left.”
“How about the infected? Are the groups large?”
“It’s the surrounding countryside. Man, those little groups of ’em, the wolf packs, they’re all over the place outside the city. Inside the city, it’s mostly regular people who do the most damage. More like gangs. They’re not really friendly toward anyone.” Eddie reached across and took his wife’s hand. “They pretty much looted and burned our neighborhood to the ground. We barely made it out.”
“How long have you been on the road?”
“About two weeks now.” Eddie looked at his kids. “It’s been slow going with the little ones.”
“I’m surprised you made it this far,” Lee said frankly.
“Me too.”
Harper pulled the Humvee up to the front gate of Camp Ryder and the sentry took a moment to shine his flashlight inside the windshield and see who it was. Harper squinted against the light and waved his hand. The sentry pulled the gate open and they drove through, back in the same spot they had left from. A few people hung around the main drag, curious about the goings-on, and a few more shacks glowed as people lit their lanterns and flashlights and poked their heads out to see what the hubbub was about.
Harper made a rude noise and flung his door open. “I’m going back to bed.”
LaRouche opened up the back hatch and climbed out, his rifle clattering across the tailgate. “Yeah, Cap. If you don’t have anything for me, I’ll be catching some Zs.”
Lee nodded as he got out of the car. “Yes. Thank you. You guys can all go grab some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Beside the Humvee, Eddie and his family huddled in a tight unit.
Julia nodded toward them. “I’ll try to get them a little food and some water. Probably have to sleep in the medical trailer tonight. I don’t know if we have room for them anywhere else.”
Lee nodded. He could feel his body crashing underneath him. He felt worse now than he had when he’d turned in for the night. But he didn’t want to leave Julia by herself to take care of the newcomers. “Yeah. I’ll grab the water and food if you want to get them settled into some bunks.”
Father Jim laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let me handle it, Captain. You look dead on your feet, and I’m not gonna be able to sleep anyway.” He smiled. “Some people crash after a fight. I tend to lie awake.”
“You sure?”
But Jim and Julia were already escorting the family toward the medical trailer. Lee was too tired to argue, and frankly, he lacked the concern. He needed to sleep. Maybe he would actually give a shit in the morning.
Harper and LaRouche both threw up their hands and yawned, one after the other.
Harper smacked his lips. “Guess that means we’re good. Don’t wake me up again.”
Lee smiled and turned toward the Camp Ryder building, where he could see the tall frame of Bus making his way toward him, looking half asleep and very confused, holding on to his M4 by the carrying handle.
“What happened?” Bus looked at the family being escorted into the medical trailer.
Lee motioned toward them but kept walking. “Newcomers.”
“Oh.” Bus watched them for a second longer, but then turned and fell in with Lee. “Did you leave? I thought I heard the gate opening.”
“Yeah. The guy was banging on the gate. We went out and grabbed his family from the back of an overturned tractor trailer. They were holed up in there, surrounded by a pack of infected.”
“What? Damn.” Bus rubbed his curly hair. “I can’t believe I missed all of that. I must’ve really been out of it.”
“He’s a mechanic,” Lee added. “Diesel mechanic.”
“Really?”
Lee stopped at the front steps to the Camp Ryder building and looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah… I dunno.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know about him.”
Bus followed Lee’s gaze, but they could only see the glow of the lantern inside the medical trailer. A few people stood around outside, rubbernecking, before they hurried back to their shacks, rubbing their arms in the cold.
“You get a bad vibe from him?” Bus asked.
“No.” Lee shook his head. “I really haven’t had a chance to think about it.”
“We rescue people all the time,” Bus pointed out. “What’s different about him?”
Lee couldn’t really put his finger on it. It wasn’t Eddie so much that Lee had an issue with, but how Lee hadn’t been able to control the situation. It had been such a rush to get out and bring them back in. With other refugees, Lee usually had a chance to speak with them at length and develop a good sense of whether they were decent people or not.
“Just indulge me,” he said, concluding his thoughts. “Get the sentries on shift to keep an eye on them. They should be able to see the medical trailer from their post. I just don’t want to give him free rein of the camp until I’ve had a chance to make up my mind about him.”
“He’s a diesel mechanic.” Bus smiled.
Lee couldn’t help but smile back. A mechanic was such a stroke of good luck that Eddie could have been a raging lunatic and they might have welcomed him anyway. “I’m sure everything will be fine. Just wanna be careful.”
Bus stretched his neck. “I’ll talk to the sentries.”
They parted ways and Lee continued up to the foreman’s office, where he dropped his gear at the foot of his bedroll and collapsed into it. Groggily, he recalled his dead Aimpoint sight and he took a moment to scrounge a spare AA battery from his pack and replace the one in the sight. With his eyes drooping closed on him, he laid the rifle beside him, still loaded and ready. He barely had time to take off his boots and pull the blankets over himself before he was fast asleep once more.
* * *
Lee slept for three more hours and could have slept longer, but Camp Ryder was waking up below him and the smells of something on the cook fires m
ade him realize that he was painfully hungry again. He could hear the clamor and talking of the people on the main level, everyone getting ready for their day and whatever it held. Some would go off and scavenge a bit, some would set up their little trading posts. Everyone had a job to do, and it took a lot of work to keep everything running smoothly.
With the scavengers finding their own sources of food to barter with, some of the people in the camp were able to provide for themselves, though it was usually only one meal out of the day. Generally speaking, most who could feed themselves did so for their midday meals, while breakfast and dinner remained largely communal.
Lee sat up in his bedroll and looked to his left. Nothing of Julia’s was in the room. She had not come back after last night’s excursion. She had probably spent the last few hours caring for the Ramirez family.
He twisted a few times to get the kinks out of his back and began drawing circles in the air with his foot, working some blood into the joint and loosening up the tendons. When he felt it was ready for him to stand on, he got up and pulled on his boots. He shuffled over to the radio unit, taking a look out the office window to see the world bathed in bright sunlight. The solar panels would get a good charge.
He checked to make sure he was on the right channel as he took the handset and keyed it. “Captain Harden to Wilson, or anyone at Outpost Lillington.”
Wilson must have been in the truck, because his answer was almost immediate. “Yeah, this is Wilson. Go ahead.”
“Everything go all right last night?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what the meeting was about, but the professor came back fucking pissed about something. No one would even speak to us. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Lee rolled his eyes. “Everything will be fine. Do a check and make sure they have everything set up before you leave, okay? Come straight back here and do nothing.”
“Do nothing?”
“Yeah. R and R.”
“Oh.” Strangely, it was only until Lee heard the surprise in Wilson’s voice that he realized how much they ran themselves ragged. Every day they were running to this place or that, putting out fires, making contact with and escorting bands of survivors, debriefing people, scavenging, and fighting. They were all beyond exhaustion now. They had entered that rut where they were so used to running themselves into the ground that they didn’t even think twice about it anymore.
Lee keyed his mike. “We’ll see you when you get here. Be safe.”
“Thanks. We will.”
Lee set the handset back on the cradle.
They needed a day to get everything in order.
Sanford might be a tough nut to crack.
CHAPTER 8
A Delicate Matter
Lee went downstairs and discovered that the line for breakfast was almost gone. People stood around and talked, holding the battered plastic plates that had once been considered “disposable” but were now rinsed and reused for as long as they would hold together. A quick glance at a few of the plates revealed that breakfast today was some sort of scramble consisting of dehydrated eggs, some bits of dehydrated vegetables, and little chunks of meat, most likely what was left of the venison.
Marie was leaning against the wall, having a small plate to herself. She smiled and waved her plastic fork at him as he approached.
“Well, hey there, Captain!” She set her plate down. “How’ve you been?”
Lee smiled and nodded. “Got some sleep, so I’m feeling pretty good.”
Marie looked about as tired as he felt, though her demeanor was cheery. She worked hard to feed a lot of mouths, and though things weren’t as tight as they had been when she’d been forced to give everyone only a half scoop of rice and beans at dinner, it was a daily battle for her to scrape up enough to feed seventy-some-odd people. The worries of an inevitably lean winter tugged at the corners of her mouth and gave her smile a downward slant.
She took a plate and gave him a wink as she began piling on a larger-than-normal portion for him. “I heard about last night,” she said quietly. “Everything go okay?”
“Yeah.” Lee put his hands on the table and leaned on it to take the weight off his ankle for a moment. “No one got hurt, and I think the family is all going to be okay. Julia checked them out last night, and I haven’t heard any bad news, so I’m assuming they’re all okay.”
Marie nodded. “Where you think I get all my intel from? Yes, the family is okay.”
Lee chuckled. “Of course. Did she tell you he was a diesel mechanic?”
“I heard.” She handed the plate to Lee. “That’s great news.”
Lee regarded his portions. “Wow. That’s a lot of food.”
She gave him a critical look up and down and waved the serving ladle at him. “Yeah, I’m putting you on double portions, mister. You’re looking a bit thin.”
Lee patted his stomach. “I’m solid as a rock.”
“A very skinny rock.”
“Is it really that noticeable?”
“Look at your pants.”
Lee looked down. His jacket was open so he could see the front belt line of his pants. The belt was tightened down so that the loose-fitting waist was bunched up. He shook his head. “No, the pants have just stretched out a little.”
“Go eat your food before your pants fall off.”
Lee grabbed a fork. “Thanks, Marie.”
“Hey there, Lee.” Angela appeared beside him and put a lingering hand on his arm. “Breakfast was delicious,” she complimented Marie.
“Thanks.” Marie smiled back, and Lee noticed her eyes flick to him, as though gauging his response to Angela’s presence. “How’s Abby?”
“She’s good.” Angela sighed. “Much better, thank you.”
Ever since Lee had rescued Angela and Abby—after gunning down their infected husband and father right in front of them—Angela had worried about Abby’s increasing withdrawal. She spoke very little over the following months, acted out around Lee, and often refused meals. Just recently, inside the relative safety of Camp Ryder, she’d begun to open up a bit more. Now she was playing with some of the other children, and Angela said she was acting more like her old self.
Her attitude toward Lee had not changed, but Lee could not blame her for that. She was young, and her understanding of things was limited. It would be a long time before she was able to wrap her brain around why Lee had killed her father.
Lee wasn’t sure what had happened inside Angela’s mind, but she had never held any animosity toward Lee for what he had done, and he had never seen her grieve for her late husband. It was too much of a sensitive and uncomfortable subject for Lee to broach, so he stayed the hell away from it.
Throughout the last few months, they had grown closer, though it was the closeness of two survivors who had made it to the other side of some wretched crucible together. Though their trials were far from over, that common thread still bound them, and the comfort they took from each other had grown.
Whether there was a name for this type of relationship, or whether it was some strange psychological syndrome that they were suffering from as a result of what they had been through together, Lee hadn’t the slightest idea. Nor did he care to ruminate on it.
“Glad to hear it,” Marie said, breaking into Lee’s thoughts. “Captain, you eat your food. Angela, make sure he eats it all.”
“You are looking a little thin,” Angela pointed out.
“Great.” He looked at the two women. “Gettin’ it from all sides now.”
Lee took his plate of food and headed for the door.
Angela walked beside him. “Little crowded in here. You wanna eat outside?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
Outside, the shade was chilly, but the sun was warm. It would be more pleasant today than it had been in several days. Perhaps the last week had just been a cold snap. In Lee’s experience, the temperatures during a North Carolina November fluctuated greatly. It might be forty degrees out one da
y and seventy the next. Typically, though, Lee noticed that it would begin to chill toward the end of November. Then there would be one last little heat wave of sixty- or seventy-degree temperatures, as though summer was attempting to get one last kick in, and then the climate would fall into winter.
They chose a place in the sun where a few plastic crates had been set up around a small fire pit that no one appeared to be using. Lumps of ashes were all that remained of the fuel that had burned the night before. There was still some mild warmth coming from underneath the blanket of gray.
Angela sat beside him on another crate and clasped her hands between her knees, facing the sun and seeming to enjoy the warmth. She looked content.
Lee chewed a few bites and swallowed. “Where’s Sam today?”
“He went out with Keith again. They left really early this morning.”
“Oh.” Lee nodded. “Hunting?”
“Yeah. Rabbits and squirrels.”
“Okay.”
Angela looked at him, one blue eye regarding him, while the other squinted shut against the morning sun. “I think he knows that you’re very busy,” she said. “I don’t think he holds it against you.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on doing anything today.” Lee picked at a bit of venison in his teeth and wondered why he felt so responsible for the damn kid. Guilty that he was gone all the time, like Sam was his own son and Lee was missing his baseball games to go on business trips. “It’s not like that,” Lee murmured to his own thoughts.
“Like what?” Angela asked.
Lee tapped the fork against the plate. “I’m not his father.”
Angela hesitated for a moment. “I know that. I’m sure he knows that too.”
Lee sighed and leaned back on his crate a bit, slouching his shoulders. “I feel like I should be.”
She turned partially toward him and rested her head on her hand. “Why?”
“I guess I feel partially responsible for his father’s death. I didn’t stop it, and I saved Sam. That makes me the de facto caretaker.”
Angela shook her head. “Sam likes you, Lee. You’re like a hero to him. But I think he views you as more of a… big brother. Or maybe an uncle.”