by D. J. Molles
Somewhat miffed, White hesitated to speak again and was overtaken by Old Man Hughes.
The grizzled, white-haired man from Dunn spoke in a low, growling voice that spoke of a lifetime addiction to tobacco, only recently and unwillingly overcome. "These big groups, or herds, or hordes, or whatever...will one join up with another?"
Jacob shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest. But it's a definite possibility."
Hughes nodded once. "Any idea how long it'll take them to get down this way?"
Lee had not thought it possible, but Jacob's face grew even more drawn. "By my best estimate, they’ll be crossing into North Carolina before the year is out."
The crowd buzzed like a live wire.
"That's not enough time!"
"Where are we gonna go?"
Jerry stepped forward again. He fixed Lee with a weasel-eyed look and Lee knew exactly what was coming. He raised one hand for quiet and pointed the other right at Lee. "I want to know what Captain Harden has planned for this. Surely you have some...contingency in place?"
Professor White snorted loudly. "Or are you just going to wade in with your guns blazing and hope for the best? Kill everything in sight, right? It's simpler that way."
Lee pictured two quick shots: one to cap his knee and bring him down, and the other to bust his head open. Yes, violence was simpler.
Steeling himself with a deep breath, Lee stepped forward. "Yes, we have plan." His lips stretched wide in a smile that lacked humor. "And it involves as little shooting as possible."
Jerry spread his arms, the ring master inviting the participant into his circus.
"Roanoke River," Lee said simply.
Jerry and White both stared blankly.
He turned his attention to the crowd, made up of the group leaders, the people that they trusted, and several residents of Camp Ryder that just wanted to watch. Most of the faces he recognized. "The Roanoke River is an unbroken waterway that cuts across most of the top of our state's northern border. It terminates into the coast. Further inland, near a little town called Eden, it's known as the Dan River. That waterway can be a natural barricade."
"Can't they just go around that town then?" Jerry's eyes narrowed to dark little slits.
Lee nodded. "Yes. That's the point. The town is about forty miles from the Appalachians. Jacob has already established that the infected won’t cross into the mountains because they naturally follow the path of least resistance. So between the mountains and the river, we create a bottleneck." Lee looked directly at Professor White. "So we can thin the herd."
"This is ridiculous," Jerry raised his hands and looked to the crowd for support. "What about all the bridges? They'll just cross there! This plan holds water like chicken wire!"
There was a mumble of concurrence from the crowd, it peaked out, sounding hostile. Everyone was scared and angry, but they weren't sure who to be angry with. Jerry was trying his damndest to make them angry at Lee, but the vast majority owed Lee their lives, even if they didn't agree with him all the time. The exceptions were those that had sided with Jerry from the start, the people that had been here before Lee.
Lee waited for the grumbling to pass and then spoke. "We'll blow the bridges."
Jerry's eyes went wide.
Professor White held up his hands. "You're gonna blow the bridges? What the..."
Old Man Hughes' voice boomed over White's. He wasn't shouting, but his voice carried when he wanted it to and immediately stole the attention from the two men that appeared to be in the beginnings of a fit.
"You asked the man a question," Hughes said and gestured to Lee. "At least have the decency to let him answer it before you get your knickers all twisted up."
A welcome quiet fell over the crowd as everyone listened instead of yammering back and forth.
Lee took the opportunity to continue. "I'm setting up two teams. The first will be responsible for spearheading out east, to where the Roanoke River ends in Swan Bay. They will then work their way back west, dealing with the bridges as they go. Obviously, we won't be able to blow every bridge. But there will be groups of survivors that live near these bridges, and we will attempt to make contact with them, and to enlist them to guard the bridges near them. If there is no one to guard the bridge, then we'll destroy it. If we can't destroy it, we'll mine it and barricade it as best we can."
“What about The Followers?” Someone yelled.
Lee shook his head. “There’s no reason to believe that there’s any truth to those rumors.”
A middle-aged man stepped forward, his eyes wide with fear. “I talked to a man that came from out east. He said The Followers burned his camp to the ground. He said they cannibalize the children, rape the women, and hang the men from a cross if you refuse to join them.”
The crowd stirred violently.
Lee held up a hand. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but it seems a little far-fetched.”
Bus jumped in before anyone else could revive the topic. “Let’s focus on what we know, folks. Let’s get back on track here and listen to the rest of this plan.” He nodded to Lee. “Go ahead, Captain.”
Lee shifted his weight. "The second team will head northwest towards the town of Eden. They will establish a secured route between Camp Ryder and Eden and we will use this route to run supplies, and also to ferry refugees away."
Jerry’s eyebrows shot up. "Refugees?"
Lee nodded tiredly. "Yes, refugees. If there are hordes as large as Jacob suggests there are, and they are migrating south, I anticipate that there will be refugees fleeing from these hordes. If they can fight, we'll arm them and use them, but if they're unable or unwilling to fight, we need a safe place to send them. The Camp Ryder Hub is the safest place I can think of."
Old Man Hughes tossed his gray head up. "Excuse me. But how do we know that they will be migrating south? From what we've seen, the infected hordes are pretty much sticking to where they're from around here. Why would the ones from up north be any different?"
Jacob nodded to Lee and politely fielded the question. "It's about food supply. I've actually seen it. You asked me earlier whether I'd seen these massive hordes, and I haven't, but I've seen what they do. I've been through cities that they've left behind. They've picked it clean of every edible thing. Even the canned goods I've seen them bash against a curb to get at what's inside. They won't sit around and starve to death, you understand." He looked around the crowd, gauging how many people were actually comprehending him. "The FURY bacterium eats away at your reasoning abilities, the mental safeties we've put in place over generations of living in civilization that help us to be non-aggressive and productive citizens. All that's gone, but they still have the instinct to survive. In fact, that instinct is even stronger in them than it is in us, because they're incapable of shame, or morality. They don't have limits on what they will do to survive. And the primary survival mechanism that drives them is hunger. They'll go to where the food is…And that’s south."
Lee looked at Professor White and saw the unbidden shock rise on his features, as though he simply couldn't believe what he'd seen with his own eyes for the past few months, and he was only believing it now because someone with a PhD was telling him about it. Yes, we're the food, professor. Lee thought. Do you still want to save them all? Are they still "plague victims"?
"Okay," Jerry said, his voice more subdued. "Let's talk a little about your plan, Captain."
Lee tensed slightly, knowing this would be the hard part. "We have the equipment to get the job done." He looked around. "We just don't have the manpower."
"Ah," Jerry smiled viciously. "So now you need us, huh? Things aren't so one-sided, are they?"
Lee tried hard to remain placid. "They never were. I can’t do my work without survivors, and without me, the survivors don’t survive."
This angered Jerry. "We were doing just fine before you came!"
Keith Jenkins, the man who had loaned Lee his pickup truck to make that first fateful run to
Bunker #4, stepped forward and Lee watched Jerry bristle like a dog with its hackles up. It was a well-known fact that the two men despised each other.
The old man adjusted his dirty old ball cap on his balding head and spat on the ground. "I know I'm gettin' old, but I'm pretty sure my memory is still good. And as I recall, we was pretty much starving before Captain Harden came along. Didn't have no guns, didn't have no medicine, and we never left the damn gates." He raised his head up so he was peering at Jerry from underneath the shade of his cap bill. "Seems like you're one ungrateful motherfucker."
The crowd stirred, and everyone started shouting, some in support of Jerry, and some against him. Keith Jenkins just shook his head and stepped over to Lee while Jerry looked around, unsure of what to do or say in that moment. Keith smiled and nodded at Julia, and planted himself firmly beside her, clearly on Lee's side, as though he'd drawn a line in the sand.
He raised a hand up and hollered, "I don't know about ya'll, but I'm with Captain Harden." He turned to Lee. "Anything you need, Cap. You let me know."
Another, younger man stepped out of the crowd and over towards Lee. "I'm with you, too."
"Wait!" Professor White wailed, holding up his hands. "Wait! There's no need for a military force! We don't need a goddamned draft right now! This isn't Vietnam, Captain!" He spoke with such vehemence that spittle flew from his mouth in sprays. "Stop looking at everything through the eyes of a warlord and try to see it through the eyes of the peaceful people you're supposed to be protecting! We're trying to rebuild a civilization, not fight a war! Why do you want us to keep fighting when we don't get anything out of it?" His eyes were beginning to water and his voice cracked with emotion. "It's like you're living out your childhood fantasies, playing war in your backyard! But it's not a game anymore, Captain! These are real lives you're taking! You're sending real people to die when there are other options!"
Lee bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood. The pain cleared the buzzing in his ears and the rising, prickling heat that washed over his head. A few more deep breaths. "If there is another, better option, please let me know."
The professor's emotion was like a radio transmitter, and the group of his students from Fuquay-Varina that had come along with him were all picking it up, they were beginning to shout and to cry along with him, their forms hunched over and pleading, desperate.
Lee thought they looked pathetic, but tried to clear the anger from his head and detach himself from them. What were they, really? They were scared sheep. Scared of the shepherd, scared of the sheepdog, and scared of the wolf. Their only capability for problem solving was to stampede away. He couldn't fault them for it. It was who they were.
White drew closer to Lee and his posture was both furious and supplicating. "We run. We leave this behind. You said that they don't go over the mountains, so we should go over the mountains where they can't get us! The mountains are rich with wildlife. We can live there in communities until the infected die out. They must, eventually die out. We can wait it out rather than fight! At least we'll be alive!"
Lee shook his head, pityingly. "And what about the rest of North Carolina? What about South Carolina, and Georgia? We just leave them to figure it out on their own? Better them than us, right?"
"They can run too! They can go over the mountains..."
Lee's control was like a wet rope slipping through his fingers. "The mountains only go so far. Why don't you take some fucking responsibility for something instead of shoving it on down the line? This is our problem now. We need to solve it."
White opened his mouth to protest, but Lee cut him off and pointed a finger in his face.
"You talk all these high ideals about society, but you're not willing to do shit for it. And you know what? That's fine! That's why there's people like me, and Julia, and LaRouche, and Father Jim, and Harper. People that are willing to fight. If you're not willing, that's okay. But don't hold back those that are."
White was shaking his head, tears beginning to stream down his face. "You're going to ruin us! He's going to ruin us! He's going to send everyone off to die in a war for no other reason than his personal 'warrior's code'." White stepped backward into his crowd of weeping students. "We had the chance to create something better, Captain! All you want to do is send us right back to where we were!"
"Guys!" Bus stepped between them. "I think there's been enough shouting for one meeting."
But White was done. He kept shaking his head and then he brought up his finger and waved it towards Lee. "This man is a criminal. He's a warlord. All he wants is power, and he'll spend your lives to get it!" White turned before anyone else could speak. "We're done with this meeting. Clearly no one here is going to listen to reason."
Professor White and the others from Fuquay-Varina gathered around him and slowly began to edge away. The young people looked accusingly across at Lee as they crowded around their beloved leader and comforted him, as though Lee had physically hurt the man. The older ones followed the crowd, but they avoided looking up at Lee, or anyone else from Camp Ryder. Their faces were full of shame.
Lee watched them go, grinding his teeth.
Jerry remained standing with his arms crossed. He shook his head slowly, looking between Lee and Bus. "Bus, I think your judgment has been clouded. In fact, I think your judgment has been clouded since Captain Harden arrived here. This isn't something we can fight. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and run."
"It's not something you can run from either," Lee said, taking a step towards the man, but keeping his voice as level as he could manage. "What happens when the infected reach Georgia? There are no more mountains to hold them in. They'll just keep spreading. Are you going to live on top of a mountain for the rest of your life, scared to death to go down into the rest of the country? Is that the future you want?"
Jerry shook his head. "This is all gonna blow over."
"You don't know that."
Jerry sighed smugly, as though he knew something Lee did not, and that he was unable to explain it to Lee because the captain was so simple minded he wouldn't be able to understand. "Where does your plan start, Captain? What's your first order of business?"
"Sanford," Lee said. "Sanford to recover what military equipment was left over from the evacuation attempt. Then to Bunker #2 on the other side of Sanford. Once we have the equipment we need to begin, we'll split up. One team east, one team north."
"You still don't have the manpower."
"Yeah," Lee nodded. "I had hoped to ask for that during the meeting. It kinda got derailed."
Jerry held up both of his hands and backed away. "You can count me out of your crusades, Captain. Me and my people have no desire to get ourselves killed for nothing."
Lee spat in the dirt. "I only ask that if you're not willing to help, you get out of the way of those that are."
Jerry's supporters, about a dozen from the original Camp Ryder group, bolstered up behind him as he looked directly at Lee and shook his head. All he said, loud and clear, was "Madman."
CHAPTER 6: A LONG NIGHT
With Jerry and White and their groups of supporters gone from the meeting, there still remained about sixty people from Camp Ryder and Smithfield, unsure of what to do and where to go.
The winter sky had turned a deep blue in the waning twilight, and the horizon behind Lee was a pastel-colored smudge that would soon disappear. As the last sliver of sunlight glowed dimly across their faces, they began to huddle closer in the cold, pulling their jackets tighter around themselves as their collective breath took vaporous form and hovered over them. Many of them wore the OD green parkas that Lee had brought from his bunker, others wore jackets that had been pilfered during scavenging operations.
In the last bit of light, Lee met as many of them in the eye as he could. "I know I'm asking a lot. I'm asking for you to possibly leave your loved ones, and definitely to put yourself in harm's way. But I would not ask for you to do so if I didn't think we could accomplish the mission. I
need help, folks. I need as much help as I can get.”
Lee held up a hand. "This isn't an altar call. You don't have to step forward now. Go get some food. Talk to the people you need to talk to. Sleep on it. Come see me in the morning if you think you are willing and able to help. Thank you."
With that, Lee turned, and his team went with him. They made their way towards the Camp Ryder building, and behind them they could hear Bus thanking everyone for showing up. Kip Greene was still standing there next to Bus, probably confused, or dismayed, or scared shitless. God only knew what the man was thinking, whether it be about the near-violent disunion amongst the members of the Camp Ryder Hub, or about the impending threat that loomed over everyone.
As they entered the building, the smell of Marie's cooking had filled the place. Rather than ration food out to each family and individual, Marie cooked community meals from a combination of Lee’s supplies, foodstuffs that had been scavenged, and meat from the hunters—most commonly venison, but sometimes squirrel or rabbit. Even with Lee supplementing from his bunkers, there wasn’t a lot to go around. With the population of Camp Ryder growing, feeding everyone was always a challenging prospect. More and more people were having to turn to scavenging to feed themselves and their families, but eventually that too would run out.
Still, every evening, Marie would have a meal prepared, however meager.
The group headed for the line that was beginning to form at Marie's little kitchen area, but Julia remained by Lee's side. He approached the metal staircase and turned to climb it.