by D. J. Molles
LaRouche spit a stream of tobacco juice out of the open passenger side window. The smoky air smelled briefly of the molasses-like tang of Red Man. He reached out with his left hand, touched Wilson’s arm. “Slow up.”
Wilson brought the convoy to a halt.
LaRouche looked out the windows, craning his neck to get a 360-degree view. Then he looked into the backseat, where the little girl from the side of the road sat in Father Jim’s arms. She didn’t look directly at LaRouche when he looked at her, just kept staring out the window, her small lips twitching, but her face otherwise remaining blank, like her soul had already up and left her.
“This your place?” LaRouche asked her.
Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second—just a flicker of recognition.
Father Jim gently squeezed her upper arm. “Sweetie, is this where your family was?”
She nodded. Looked down at the floor.
“It’s okay,” Jim soothed.
LaRouche grabbed the radio mic from its cradle and keyed it. “Ya’ll stay back,” he told the rest of the convoy. “We’re gonna push forward a bit. See if we get a reaction.”
A string of muffled affirmatives came over the radio.
LaRouche looked at their new passenger. Joel was seated in the back left, days of sweat and dirt causing his Q-tip hair to look limp and off-white. LaRouche pointed to the turret. “Go ahead and get on that thing. Stay sharp, but only shoot at clear hostile targets. Don’t want you cappin’ some nice citizen ‘cause you thought they were infected.”
Joel nodded and clambered up into the turret. “I got it, Sarge.”
LaRouche pointed forward. “Take us in, Wilson.”
The Humvee rumbled forward again, splitting off from the convoy, an empty stretch of worn gravel and mud growing between them and their friends. They drew closer and closer to the wreckage of what had once been a home for God-knew how many people, and LaRouche leaned forward in his seat to see over the hood. In the trampled paths between the shelters and the still-burning farmhouse, where the daily passage of feet had worn the grass down to hard-packed dirt in the span of a few months, LaRouche could see the bodies.
Bodies on top of each other, like they’d been sorted through and separated into piles, though LaRouche could tell that was not the case—in each pile he could see the small limbs of children along with those of adults, both men and women. Three bodies in this pile. Four in that pile. All situated next to some shelter or another.
Families.
They were the ones that had run and hid, LaRouche realized. Maybe they fought back. Maybe they were just killed for sport. But they died inside their little shelters, and then were dragged outside and stacked up, each beside their own little hovel, be it a tent or a station wagon or something cobbled together. Their blood mixing, making mud, preparing the earth to receive them.
LaRouche glanced over his shoulder. “Jim…”
The ex-priest put his hand on the back of the girl’s head. “Close your eyes, Sweetie. Just keep ‘em closed, okay?”
The Humvee rolled to a stop about fifteen feet from the nearest shelter.
“You see anything?” LaRouche called up to Joel.
The turret rotated back and forth, slowly. “No. Looks clear.”
“Come on down with me.” LaRouche nudged his door open, grabbed his rifle. “Jim stay with the girl. Wilson, help me out.”
The gravel drive crunched under his feet. He could taste the smoke in the air.
Wilson exited the vehicle, his rifle shouldered, looking questioningly at LaRouche while the sergeant moved quickly to the first pile of bodies. A man and two little boys, perhaps four and five years old. He looked into the tent that they lay beside, cleared it with the muzzle of his rifle, then bent in quickly and came out with a bloody blanket, which he threw over the bodies. They had not truly begun to rot, so the smell was not bad, save for the slight whiff of stale shit from when they’d voided themselves, either upon death, or upon knowing that death was imminent.
Wilson and Joel quickly followed suit, covering the other bodies with tarps, plastic, even an old truck bed cover. They counted as they went, tallying up a grisly scoreboard. Three women. Six children. Four men. Thirteen, altogether.
Bad number, LaRouche mused.
He’d never been one for superstition. Had even been ballsy enough to eat the Charms out of his MREs while deployed. But lately he’d found himself seeing portents in things he would have ignored in the old world, and doing things that he would have mocked if he saw another man doing them. Like always putting on his right boot first. Refusing to discard the stripper clip he’d recently found inside the map pocket of his chest rig. And keeping his old dog tags dangling from his neck, though he couldn’t see a reason for them now. All of these things now seemed like they were just barely keeping him alive, and if he were to put his left boot on, or lose the clip, or take off his dog tags, the next ten seconds after that would see him with a bullet in his brain or infected ripping him limb from limb.
Stupid, he knew.
But there was no denying the psychological power these little rituals and objects held. And if the only benefit they could give him was some strange perception of confidence, some mental placebo effect, then he would take it anyways. He would take any benefit he could get.
The only problem was that you couldn’t just believe in good luck. You had to believe in bad luck too. So when you counted thirteen bodies, it gave you a little cold feeling in the pit of your stomach, that little cringing tension, like descending a rickety staircase into a dark basement.
He shifted the chaw around in his mouth with his tongue. Faced the Humvee and waved.
After a moment, the door popped open and Jim stepped out, then helped the little girl down.
Wilson stepped to his side, rifle relaxed across his chest. “What are we doing with her, Sarge? She shouldn’t be seeing this shit…”
“Well, I’d hoped…” he looked around at the piles of dead bodies under their poor disguises. He shook his head, a very small gesture of regret. “All we can do now is ask her questions. See what she can tell us.”
“Pump her for info?”
LaRouche nodded. “S’pose so.”
“Sarge,” Wilson looked around. “Who the fuck’s gonna take care of her?”
LaRouche shrugged. “First decent person we can pawn her off to.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah. The world is fucked up.”
Jim approached, walking slowly alongside the girl’s small, hesitant steps. She looked at the mounds underneath the blankets, could clearly see a foot sticking out here, some fingers there, a woman’s long hair curling up from under a tarp, the shadow of a face, the folds of skin oddly frozen in place by rigor.
The girl stared, but gave no reaction.
Everything was being internalized.
Processed.
LaRouche looked up at Jim and mouthed quietly, “What’s her name?”
Jim mouthed back: “Tessa.”
LaRouche knelt down, touched the girl’s shoulder to get her attention again. “Tessa, are you doin’ okay?”
Tessa looked at him, her eyes darting back and forth between his. They watered. “Where’s my daddy?”
“Honey, I don’t know.” LaRouche let out a breath. The sweet chaw suddenly cloyed at him. He looked off to his right, where the wreckage of humanity lay in burned ruins and piles of bodies. The unrelenting acid in his stomach singed his throat. It’d seemed common sense to come here and see if anyone in the settlement had survived to take the girl. But now it seemed like a mistake.
Wilson pointed towards their Humvee, looking for any excuse to get out of the awkward situation. “I’m gonna tell the others to come on up.”
LaRouche waved him off, then draped his hands over the receiver of his M4. “Tessa, can you tell me anything about the bad guys that came?”
The little girl nodded.
“Do you remember where you first s
aw them?”
She pointed to the left of the farmhouse. “They were coming through the woods right there.” Then she turned and pointed towards LaRouche’s convoy. “And they were coming from the road right there.”
“So they were coming from two directions?”
“Yes.”
“Were the bad guys that came through the woods just walking?”
“No, they were running.”
“But, I mean, they weren’t riding horses or anything?”
“No horses.”
“Did they say anything, or did they immediately start shooting?”
Tessa’s lip quivered. She looked around. “I don’t know. Daddy told me to run. And then there was lots of screaming and shooting.” Her breath came quicker. “I know what the bad guys do. Daddy told me they hurt people on the cross, just like Jesus.”
“Sarge…” Jim said quietly.
LaRouche looked up, nodded. He wasn’t going to get anything out of Tessa that he didn’t already know. And prying was obviously not helping. He was beginning to feel like a tremendous asshole. “Alright.” He stood up. “Come on. Let’s get us turned around and on the road.”
Jim put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and began to guide her back to their Humvee.
Joel suddenly crossed in front of LaRouche, whipping his rifle up and putting a hand on LaRouche’s chest as though to keep him from going any further. “Head’s up! Head’s up! Tree line!”
LaRouche spun, his boots grinding out a horseshoe shape in the dirt as he took a wide-legged stance, shoulder hunched, elbows tucked into his sides. The rifle raised up to his eyes and he turned back and forth, looking at the tree line that Joel pointed towards, but not seeing anything.
“You see him?” Joel shouted. “You see him right there? Right there in front of you!”
LaRouche strained to see in the woods, to sense movement. “What the fuck are you…”
He saw it.
A man in dirt-smudged overalls, and an equally dirty white thermal. He stood at the tree line a few hundred yards from them, his hands high above his head.
“Hold your fire,” LaRouche mumbled around a mouthful of juice, then spat and raised his voice. “Everyone hold your fire!”
The man in the overalls had hesitated at first when all the rifles swung in his direction, but now, seeing that they were not firing, he stumbled forward and yelled across the distance between them. A single word. LaRouche couldn’t tell.
“The fuck is he saying?” Joel said tensely.
“No idea.”
“Why is he yelling?” Joel stammered. “Doesn’t he know not to yell in the fucking woods?”
LaRouche initiated Joel with a slap on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on that idiot.” He glanced behind him and saw everyone facing out towards the guy approaching. “Don’t leave our asses exposed, people! Someone watch our backs!”
Two people spun and faced the other way.
“Sarge,” Joel lowered his rifle a few inches. “I think he’s calling for the girl.”
LaRouche squinted at the man, kept his rifle trained.
“Tessa!” the man screamed hoarsely. “Tessa!”
LaRouche took a few steps forward. The stranger was perhaps a hundred yards from them, still hollering, waving his arms, the picture of desperation. From this distance, LaRouche could see the pale remnants of blood smeared across his face, looking like it came from his nose, and from a gash over his left eye. Drips had created vertical streaks on the chest of his white shirt. His sleeves were marred with it from when he’d used them to mop up his face.
No other obvious signs of injury.
“Keep coming forward!” LaRouche called out to him. “Keep your hands where I can see ‘em!”
“Sarge, there’s more guys in the woods,” Joel said. “Wait…”
LaRouche looked past the man. Several pale shapes, slipping through the dark timber. Moving fast. Spreading out.
“Shit!” Joel yelped.
LaRouche called it. “Infected! In the woods!”
The man in the overalls turned, saw the flitter of movement rushing up behind him. His hands dropped, his eyes went wide, and his legs began pumping. LaRouche could hear him as he closed the distance at a dead sprint: “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”
LaRouche backpedaled. “Joel! Get on the fifty!”
He raised his rifle again at the man running towards them. He wasn’t about to let a stranger just hop up into their Humvee, no matter what the situation. He waited until the man was about to run past him, then reached out and grabbed a handful of his overalls, stopped him in his tracks and slammed him on the ground.
“Don’t fucking move!” LaRouche screamed in his ear.
“Lemme go!” The man cried out. “They’re gonna get me!”
LaRouche mashed his face into the ground, stood over him and began to pat down his pockets for weapons. “Shoulda thought of that before you started hollerin’ at the top of your lungs, you dumb fuck!”
The man began to resist, twisting around. “Oh shit! They’re gonna get me! They’re gonna get me!”
LaRouche put a knee in the man’s back to pin him, and did a quick assessment. He looked out towards the trees. The pale shapes of bare-skinned bodies were just now reaching the edge of the woods. They were spread out in a line, four or five of them. The right edge of the line closer than the left. Moving ridiculously fast. Faster than a human should have been able to move.
“I need some help!” LaRouche hollered.
Jim shot out of the Humvee, rifle in hand.
Joel squirmed into the turret, swung it in the direction of the oncoming infected.
Jim stuttered to a stop. “What do you need?”
“He’s clean!” LaRouche stood up. “Put him in the back and don’t let him fucking move!”
The man wailed. “I didn’t do anything! Don’t let them get me!”
Jim grabbed the man by the arms, hauled him onto his feet. “Come with me!” They began moving towards the Humvee, LaRouche backing up and keeping an eye on the infected. They burst through the woodline, but stayed silent, which was unusual. By now they should have been screeching and barking and calling back and forth like a pack of wolves on the hunt.
LaRouche judged the distance quickly. There was no way in the world he was getting all of his vehicles out of there before the infected reached them. His stomach felt like it was going to start convulsing.
A flicker of movement to his left.
He spun in the direction of the farmhouse.
Three more of them, low to the ground, skirting the edge of the settlement.
Cutting them off.
LaRouche spun, sprinted for the Humvee. Just ahead of him Jim shoved the man into the rear door and dove in after him. LaRouche was fifteen feet from his door when Joel swung the big .50-caliber M2 in his direction, the maw of the barrel pointed just over his shoulder.
“Behind you!” Joel yelled.
LaRouche ducked and spun as the air percussed. A heavy, ear-shattering chug-chug-chug. Dirt erupted just a few paces in front of him, and beyond the dark flying clods of dirt a pair of sinewy arms outstretched towards him, and then the next two rounds slammed the creature back, ripping it apart.
LaRouche’s back hit the wheel well of the Humvee.
Another one bound through the wreckage of the settlement. Its movements more ape than man. LaRouche could see nothing about it other than the fact that it was coming right for him. The rest was a pale blur. He snap-fired two rounds. Couldn’t tell if they hit. Began firing more. The creature slid behind a tent, LaRouche’s bullets tracking it, ripping through the thin nylon fabric. It appeared on the other side and came straight at him. He kept pulling the trigger, but nothing happened.
It didn’t stop coming.
LaRouche backed up two steps and yanked his door open.
I’m not gonna make it…
He tumbled into the passenger seat.
The thing hit the door hard, slamming it i
nto LaRouche’s arm, causing his M4 to fly out of his grasp. He cried out, more in fear than pain. A hand like a robotic vice shot through the open window and grabbed LaRouche by the throat. He couldn’t see its face. Only the wild, dreadlocked hair and gnashing teeth. LaRouche tried to cry out, but couldn’t get air past the grip on his throat.
He scrambled for his side arm.
The head worked through the window, jaws snapping.
LaRouche found his Beretta M9, yanked it from the holster.
He felt the Humvee moving, could hear gravel slinging. The world out past the windows was a blur of gray. Centrifugal force shoved him towards the creature’s jaws. He tried to get the pistol up, but something blocked him, something was in the way. He just kept thinking, why isn’t anyone helping me?
The teeth were so close that LaRouche could see the dark gums, smell the sickly breath. He recoiled away yanking at his pistol in a fever pitch of panic, but he couldn’t pull his face any further from the jaws, and the pistol was not coming free. If the thing gained another inch, it would have him. It would bite him.
Something suddenly poked through from the back seat. A long, thin, tube of black metal that jutted between LaRouche’s headrest and the side of the Humvee, and it speared the thing in the face, pressing against its jaw.
A flash.
Blood.
In his lap. In his face. In his mouth.
Smoke seeped from the thing’s wide-open maw like it breathed fire. The eyes rolled back. The grip loosened. LaRouche ripped it off of him, yanked his right hand free, still holding his pistol, then slammed the hunk of metal into the creature’s face and shoved it out of the window.
Above him, the M2 thundered.
The little girl screamed.
The stranger’s voice shouted hysterically.
Small arms fire popped and crackled.
The Humvee fishtailed, hit a bump, lifted up, then slammed back down onto the ground.
LaRouche gagged, spat the coppery taste from his mouth, bits of tobacco coming out with it. His stomach heaved. “It got in my mouth!” he screamed, a sudden sensation of sickness coming over him. “It got in my mouth! It’s in my mouth!”