by D. J. Molles
The screen went black.
Lee almost screamed.
But then the map came back again, this time without the password prompt to block it, and at the top of the screen were the words, WELCOME, CAPT. HARDEN.
He breathed and grinned. The smile stretched his face in a way he wasn’t used to. It’d been so long since he’d smiled so fully and so genuinely. He looked at Tomlin, who was grinning just as foolishly as Lee, and then he looked across to Carl and Brinly.
“We’re in business!” he shouted loud enough this time for them to hear.
For the remainder of the short flight, Lee donned a set of the headphones that Carl offered him and explained in detail everything that had led them up to this point. Carl remained stoic when Lee explained Project Hometown, though his eyebrows had twitched up just slightly. He seemed to look at Lee and Tomlin with more intense focus, as though he had just realized that he should take them seriously. He didn’t seem at all surprised when Lee explained how President Briggs and Major Abe Darabie had sent men to kill him, to prevent him from using the bunkers. He did, however, seem very surprised to learn about the infected hordes coming out of the northeastern states.
“And you have a plan to deal with this?” Carl’s voice came over the headphones with a tinny, electronic quality.
Lee nodded. “Yes, we do. If we can get rolling on it immediately.”
“Time sensitive?”
“Extremely.”
As they came into view of Camp Ryder and started to slow, the rush of positivity that had overcome Lee was tempered by the realism of the situation. Getting the GPS back was a big step in the right direction and made him feel like he was getting control of things, but in reality, he was still behind the ball. A lot of men had already died, and their deaths would only be worth it if Lee could pull this off. Not to mention the lives that depended on it. The people of Camp Ryder that knew their lives depended on Lee being smart and quick, as well as hundreds if not thousands of others strewn across the state that knew nothing of Lee and the Camp Ryder Hub, but would be wiped out nonetheless if Lee’s plan to stop the hordes failed.
And there was Abe. And Lucas. One dead, the other lying in an infirmary somewhere in Fort Bragg, close to dead, if he was not already there. They were both where they were at Lee’s hand. He had fired the shots. He had chased them down. He had been so damned convinced that they were the enemy.
Is that where I’m at now? he thought, feeling the positivity bleed away. I can’t tell the difference between friends and enemies?
Tomlin put a hand on his shoulder. Lee turned to look at him. He must’ve known what Lee was thinking, must have seen the elation fade from Lee’s face. He shook his head slowly. “There was nothing you could have done about that, Lee. It’s a shitty situation. No other way around it. No way you could have made it turn out different.”
Lee looked down at his hands. They were filthy. Bloody.
“Focus on what you have to do right now. You can have your regrets later.”
Lee nodded. He’s right. Regrets later.
They landed at Camp Ryder amid a crowd of people that shuffled in close and then realized how big the helicopter truly was and decided to give it a wider berth. The pilot set the Black Hawk down in almost the exact same spot he’d arrived in earlier that morning—right in the middle of the Square.
Before the bird settled onto its tires, Lee was already out.
Nate and Devon shouldered through the crowd first. Both looked concerned, perhaps slightly irritated. They were looking over Lee’s shoulder at Tomlin. Nate raised his hands in a what the hell? gesture. Tomlin smiled and took Nate by the shoulders.
“Sorry, gents. It was for your own safety.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh, Lord…”
Lee grabbed Devon as he walked. “Get Angela. And Old Man Hughes. And Brett. I need all the leaders up in the office, immediately.”
“Okay.” Devon nodded quickly and took off running to find them.
Five minutes later they were packed into the office-turned-war-room. They encircled the small desk, on which the big map of North Carolina had been laid. Lee, Tomlin, Angela, Old Man Hughes, Brett, Marie, Carl, and Brinly. Even Mac and Georgia were there. Nate and Devon hovered near the door, unsure whether they were a part of this meeting or not.
Lee waved them in. “Come in and shut the door. You’re a part of this.”
They exchanged a glance, then slipped in and shut the door. They made their way to the desk, directly across from where Lee was standing, and they pressed into the narrow spot between Brinly and Carl so that they could see the map that everyone else was looking at. That, and Lee, who everyone could tell was moving with some urgency and impatience. Everyone was accustomed to Lee being intense, but even in that focus, he had a laid-back way of operating. It was clear now that time was of the essence, and the urgency was contagious through the group. They were listening.
Lee looked to Brinly first. “Did you pass the word along?”
Brinly nodded once. “Colonel Staley’s on his way back to Camp Lejeune as we speak. Birds should be in the air soon.” He pointed to two points on the map. One was the bridge over the Roanoke River where Wilson and his group had been overrun. The other was the town of Eden. “These are the two known collapse points, correct?”
Lee bobbed his head. “That we know of.”
“Right. So that’s where we’re gonna start.” He drew two quick lines on the map. “First sorties will begin from these two points and start blowing bridges, moving toward each other until they meet up in the middle.”
“Good. What’s the ETA on that?”
“Until all the bridges are blown?” Brinly shrugged. “I’d say within twenty-four hours, if we run sorties constantly.”
“Okay.” Lee touched his lip with the tip of his finger, staring at the map. “Okay. Okay.”
Carl looked somewhat dubious. “How exactly are my guys fitting into this?”
Lee met his gaze. “What’s your fuel situation?” he asked. “Aviation fuel, specifically.”
Carl tilted his head. “Enough.”
Lee smiled. “Enough’s enough.” He pointed to a black dot in the eastern section of North Carolina, near to the coast and south of the Roanoke River. It had been drawn there in marker. “This is bunker number three. I’ve got two more in eastern North Carolina, but this one is closest to Camp Lejeune.” Lee looked at the only Marine in the room. “Now, First Sergeant Brinly, if Carl can get me flown out to bunker three, can you get one of your Chinooks to meet me there to pick up the guns and ammo?”
Before Brinly could answer, Carl held up a hand. “Why am I using my fuel to fly you out there? If the Marines have birds, why aren’t they flying you out there?”
Lee looked briefly exasperated. “Because they barely have enough fuel to blow all the bridges along the Roanoke. I need you and your birds and your fuel to get me there. I need to get the guns and ammo to the Marines. Once they have the guns and ammo, they’ll be able to run their artillery pieces out of Camp Lejeune and get them to a point where we can use them.”
Carl frowned. “For…?”
“I’m getting to that.” Lee pointed at Brinly. “Can you get a Chinook to me?”
“If you can get yourself out there, I can get a Chinook to pick up the supplies. But that is literally going to bleed us dry.” Brinly looked pained. “We’ll have virtually no air power after that.”
Lee nodded. “I know. I know. But I don’t see another way to get those guns and ammo to your men in the time frame we need.” He didn’t wait too long for Brinly to agree. Lee was on a roll, and Brinly knew that his crew had to make some sacrifices here. They were all making sacrifices, because they all understood the gravity of the situation.
Lee looked at Nate and Devon. The two men stared back intensely. “I know you two guys have been run pretty hard, but that’s what you get for being so damn reliable.” Lee earned himself a smirk from Nate and a grin from Devon. “
I’ve got a job for you guys. And it’s not gonna be nice.”
Lee planted his two index fingers on the two points that he had already indicated where the infected hordes had made it across the Roanoke River. “These two hordes are moving south. I don’t know how big they are, but from the little information we could get I would estimate… big. They are going to follow lines of drift—the easiest path possible. This means roadways, fields, flatland, wherever it’s most convenient to put one step in front of the other. And then they’re gonna start to spread out through North Carolina. And I don’t think anybody at this table wants to see that happen.”
No one did.
Lee continued. “The only way they will divert from just following the path of least resistance will be if they have their eyes on something. And the only way this plan is going to work and we can stop the advance of these hordes is going to be if we can draw them into one area.”
Nate made a quiet hissing sound through his teeth. “You want us to lure them.”
It was insane. Lee knew it. And dangerous. There was no denying. But it made sense, if you could get past how uncomfortable it made you to dangle your own limbs out as bait. Lee smiled grimly. “Like an Old West cattle drive, my friend. Except they won’t be running from you—they’ll be running for you.”
Nate took a few more breaths. Finally he nodded as he stared at the map. “Okay. We can do that.”
“We can?” Devon didn’t seem so sure. But Nate gave him a stern look, and he just stood up straight and accepted it. “We can. We can do it.”
“Good.” Lee looked at Old Man Hughes. “I need two more. Nate and Devon will be drawing in this horde”—Lee indicated the one that had overrun Eden—“which we will just call ‘the western horde’ for now. I’m going to need two more men to draw in the eastern horde.”
Old Man Hughes nodded. “I can get you two men, that’s not a problem. But how is this gonna work? We just gonna ride out there and try to get them to follow us?”
Lee nodded plainly. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Two men in a pickup truck. One driving, one in the bed. From what I can tell, these hordes operate off of a fairly herdlike mentality. If you can get one or two chasing you, the rest of the horde is coming along for the ride. All we need is for one of the guys to stay visible. I feel like if they can see us, we’ve got a better chance of them running after us. Then we just drive them in.”
Old Man Hughes looked at the map. “Drive them into where? And why?”
Lee spread his palms around the area of the map north of Camp Ryder and south of the Raleigh-Durham area. “The plan is to have them converge into one single area. One single horde. We need a relatively open area. But it needs to have a point of high, defensible ground where a small element can stay in view of the infected but not be in danger of getting overrun. It also needs to be pretty much between the two hordes so that they can meet in the middle at the same approximate time. And also be away from Camp Ryder enough that we’re not catching the outer rim of the horde.”
Mac had been growing increasingly fidgety as Lee spoke, his face clouding with every second. Finally, he seemed to burst. “Excuse me. Why the fuck are we luring them anywhere near us? Why aren’t we luring them off? Out of the way? Over to a different area? Putting two huge hordes together to make one even bigger horde?” Mac was shaking his head vehemently. “That seems like a horrible idea.”
Lee exercised patience. He took a moment to tone down his response. “You know how we cleared the towns we hold now, Mac?”
Mac sniffed loudly, insolently. “How?”
“We figured out that the hordes inside the cities liked to bed down at night when the temperature got cooler. So we’d sneak into town in the middle of the night. And we’d pick a point in the town where we could sit on a rooftop and look down on a big, open area, like a large intersection, or a four-lane street or something. Then we’d line that street with claymores and explosives. And then right before dawn, we’d take a bag full of deer guts and we’d throw it on a frying pan, on a little camp stove, and we’d just let it burn. The smell would waft all through the town, and before you knew it the infected would come running for their next meal. Herd instinct. They all just crowded around the burning guts, trying to get a piece. And when we had them all right there in our killbox, we’d light ’em up. Pick off the stragglers with rifle fire from the rooftops where we were hiding. We could knock out hordes of hundreds in a matter of minutes.”
Mac clenched his jaw. “That’s clever, Captain. But hundreds ain’t millions.”
“You’re right.” Lee nodded. “That’s why the bait’s gone from deer guts to men, and the killbox has gone from an intersection to an entire town. And the claymores have been upgraded to howitzers.”
“The Marine artillery,” Old Man Hughes said.
Lee snapped his finger. “Exactly. And back to your question about where…” Lee pointed at a familiar town. “I think Smithfield meets our needs best. It’s directly between the two hordes, it’s got major roadways that feed it but don’t run through big cities, so it should be easy for our… bait trucks to get through safely. It’s got high ground at the hospital where we can put a small element to keep the infected’s attention. Plus, we already own it. It won’t take any clearing operations to secure it. We can have people in the hospital by the end of today.” Lee shifted his hands to an area southeast of Smithfield. “Out here we have some natural high ground. It’s just farmland, but it’s accessible, defensible, and you can park artillery there and be within perfect range of Smithfield. Brinly, we need to get your arty right there.”
Brinly eyed the spot on the map. “Yeah. I can get my guns there. But I’m gonna need a path cleared if you want us there quick. If we gotta roll slow, looking for ambushes, then you can expect it to take a few days.”
Lee looked back at Mac and Georgia. “Folks, this is where I need you.”
Mac did not look pleased. “For what? I’m not making any promises…”
Lee spoke over him. “We need to get the Marine artillery from Lejeune to this overlook east of Smithfield. First Sergeant Brinly has passed on some reports from his men back east that the Followers have very rapidly started pushing west. I don’t know how far they intend to push, or whether they will reach us. But I need some people to keep an open door for the Marines.” Lee traced a finger from the overlook to another dot on the map. “Newton Grove. We’ve traded with them very recently and maintained open roads between them and the Camp Ryder Hub. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any contact with them within the last week, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.” Lee straightened his back and made eye contact with Mac, and then Georgia. “I need that town secured. I need it secured and I need a scouting party to continue to keep the roads cleared for the Marines and keep an eye out for the Followers. I’m not sure what’s up with Newton Grove, but the roads have been traveled recently, and I still feel like they should be the best bet as a highway for the Marines.”
Mac was scratching his face, his lips pulled down into a grimace. “Why the fuck we gotta clear the way for the Marines?” He took a sidelong glance at Brinly. “I mean, no offense, man, but aren’t you guys, like, bad motherfuckers and all that? Captain, you’re giving them weapons. I thought that was the point in giving them the weapons in the first place. So they can clear their own way.”
“Because we need those artillery pieces in place ASAP,” Lee said simply. “No matter how much I despise a time-sensitive plan, that’s exactly what this is. We draw the hordes down into Smithfield. We’ll need to have a team posted on the hospital. They will be the ones to keep the attention centered on them so we keep the hordes in one place. But we can’t leave them there. So we fly in a helo to extract them from the hospital. And then we have a very small window for the artillery to take out those hordes before they start to disperse.”
Georgia cleared her throat, irritated.
Mac looked away. “You’re asking us to infiltrate and secure the whole tow
n of Newton Grove. But we’re not soldiers.”
Lee crossed his arms. “Old Man Hughes.”
Hughes raised his bushy white eyebrows. “Yuh?”
“You a soldier?”
“No, Cap. I surely ain’t.”
“What about you, Angela?” Lee looked at her.
Angela hooked her fingers into the gun belt around her waist. “Nope. Housewife.”
“Nate? Devon?” Lee turned to them. “Either of you got prior military experience? What about you, Brett? You a closet Navy SEAL I never knew about?”
Brett was looking right at Mac and Georgia. “Computer programmer.”
Nate just shook his head. “I sold cars.”
“Drywall,” Devon said. “I hung Sheetrock for a living.”
If Mac’s face could have tightened any further it would have shattered from the strain. Whether out of shame or pure anger, or perhaps a little of both, he finally looked away from the others that had gathered around the desk and the map that was laid across it. He and Georgia faced each other, and Georgia did not look any happier than he did. She tossed her head toward the door.
Mac nodded, then looked back at Lee. His voice was ice-cold. “We need a minute.”
Then the two of them walked out of the room without waiting for another word to be said.
Lee looked to Angela. “You think they’re gonna leave?”
Angela looked at the closed door with consternation. “I don’t know where the hell they think they’re gonna go.” Behind the frosted glass of the office door, Lee could see the shadows of the man and woman hunched close together in quiet but intense conversation. “Let me talk to them,” Angela said.
She went to the door and went out, closing it again behind her.
The room stood in silence for a brief moment, Lee trying to figure through how he was going to split his manpower up if Mac and Georgia’s group decided to split. Honestly, he wouldn’t be sad if they did. He needed to make use of them if they were going to sit around and soak up resources from Camp Ryder, but he didn’t trust them after the display the other night. Hell, he’d almost executed one of them on the spot. He had to imagine their feelings for him were similarly dismal.