by D. J. Molles
“Fine,” she said with a little strain. “Better, I think.”
Kensey nodded. “I’m not giving you any more painkillers until you void. It might be a bit and you might start to hurt, but hang in. I need to make sure you got enough fluids to get your plumbing running before I drug you up again.” He patted her shoulder gently. “You were a nurse. You know how it works.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”
Kensey stood and turned to Harper. “I need to put a call in to my command. Just keep an eye on her, will you?”
Harper watched him go. Kensey walked across the gravel and dirt and joined his group of Marines, which crowded around him and began speaking in hushed tones. Harper eyed them for a minute. Maybe they were discussing how the hell they were gonna stop the millions of infected from wiping out the entire state, and them along with it.
Maybe you should have listened in the first place, Harper thought bitterly.
But he knew it wasn’t their fault, specifically. They were not the ones calling the shots. They were following orders, like the good Marines they were. The fault lay with this fabled Colonel Staley, whom they all spoke of in terms of reverence, and who had decided to promise with his mouth and hold back with his hand.
And now here we are.
“You’re pissed about something.”
Harper looked down at Julia, who was staring at him, her face still pursed into that look of concentration that people get when they are trying to read reality through a filter of drugs or drunkenness.
Harper realized he was scowling and shook the expression off. “No. I mean… nothing new. Same old shit to be pissed about.”
“Oh,” she said. “You mean, like, the end of the world and stuff? Shit like that?”
He smirked. “Yeah. Shit like that.”
Julia made a rude noise and closed her eyes, resting her trembling hand on her brow. “End of the world. It ain’t gonna end. Never will. We’re living through it right now. And I think some of us will make it to the other side. Not all of us. Nope. Not everyone. But plenty of us. There is no real end of the world.”
Harper sniffed and looked off at the abandoned farmlands that surrounded them. “That’s very philosophical for someone that’s high.”
She opened one eye enough to glare at him. “Ass.”
“I meant it as a compliment,” he defended himself. “It’s a very astute observation for someone in your condition.”
She closed her eyes again. “Yeah. The world goes on, Harper. It goes on. And on. And on and on and on. Never fucking ends.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“If an asteroid were to strike and wipe us out in the blink of an eye, would you really be all that disappointed?”
“If I was wiped out in the blink of an eye I don’t think I would have time to feel disappointed.”
“You know what I mean. Jesus, you’re an ass right now.”
Harper smiled at her but she still had her eyes closed. “I know what you meant. And no. I guess I wouldn’t be all that disappointed.”
“God, you’re depressing,” she sighed.
“You were the one that brought it up.”
“Whatever.”
They sat in silence for a time. Harper cast his eyes around the granary but found only the evidence of things left behind. He kept glancing at the bag, wondering when it was going to be empty, and then felt slightly guilty. Making sure that Julia didn’t die of dehydration was not an inconvenience. And there was no real reason to be feeling urgency at the moment. They were in the middle of rural nowhere, with a good line of sight almost all the way around them and fields of wheat stubble, sprouting with tall weeds. They extended for hundreds of acres in all directions. The fields were only broken by thin stands of wood that separated one field from the next. There was nothing around them. And even if there was, they would know about it long before it got to them.
Safe?
Don’t be ridiculous, Harper chided himself. But it’s safe enough to relax for a minute.
He looked over to his left, where the Marines had been gathered, discussing things in their small committee to which Harper and his group were not allowed entry. Or maybe they were. Harper had never asked. He figured they had military things to discuss and didn’t want to be the prying civilian. Silly thought, really, since all their survivals were codependent from where Harper was standing. Harper supposed he just didn’t want to be “that guy.”
The group of Marines seemed to have dispersed. Three of them stood where the whole squad had stood. Kensey was not in sight, nor were the other five. Harper’s own people were milling about, closer to him than to the Marines. There was a clear delineation there, but nobody seemed to mind it, least of all Harper. The Marines were the Marines. Harper’s group was Harper’s group. Each set of people knew their set well, and the other set not as well. You couldn’t just expect them to mix it up like a Sunday social.
The three Marines still standing in the open seemed to realize that Harper was looking at them. One of them turned and glanced at him. Harper nodded respectfully. The three of them broke apart, like a trio of teenagers trying to find a spot to smoke their cigarettes away from adults. They moved to the rear of one of the LMTVs and walked out of sight.
Harper brushed it off. He glanced over at the IV bag. The fluids were half gone now. Julia was still lying with her arm over her shoulder, but she was clearly awake. Her face was a full-on grimace. Her eyes squeezed shut. Wakefulness had brought pain back to her.
“It’s gonna be all right, Julia,” he said quietly.
She nodded, still with her eyes closed.
He heard gravel crunch behind him. He turned and found Kensey there again, his rifle in his hands. Harper looked the man in the eyes and saw something strange. The way Kensey was standing. The body language. The way he was holding his rifle. The way he had locked eyes with Harper.
Harper shifted, feeling suddenly uneasy. “Kensey…”
The man raised his rifle, pointing it at Harper.
Blooming alarm in Harper’s chest, like a match on gasoline. Instinctively, he turned his body to shield Julia on the ground, reaching an arm out and touching her good leg. It must have got her attention and she must have opened her eyes, because Harper heard the sharp intake of her breath.
“What the fuck?” she coughed.
“Get on the ground,” Kensey said, almost casually.
Harper looked to his left, trying to see if Dylan or Charlie could see what was happening, but they were on the other side of the Humvee, not paying attention to what was going on. And by the time that Harper looked back, Kensey was on him, grabbing him by the shoulder and smashing him down into the ground. Harper grunted as he struck, tried to call out, but felt Kensey’s knee in his back, pressing the wind out of him.
Kensey’s voice: “Don’t resist. I’ll kill you both, Harper. You know that I will.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Harper strained to get the words out.
“Harper!” Julia was trying to sit up and failing.
With his face smashed against the ground, Harper could not see Dylan’s and Charlie’s faces, could not tell if they were registering what was going on. But he could see their feet. Underneath the Humvee, he could see their boots. And the sound of footfalls, pounding quickly across gravel. Someone else was there, on top of him, and he felt his rifle being stripped off of him.
Julia was screaming, and then her screams became muffled.
Don’t hurt her, Harper wanted to say, but couldn’t find the air in his lungs.
He could see, and from this low perspective the gravel parking lot seemed like an endless range of jagged mountains. He could see tires. The bottom of the Humvee’s bumper. He could see Julia, or at least her legs and arms, kicking as someone wrestled to restrain her. Someone in digital camouflage and tan boots.
Then there were gunshots. He heard the first two, and then the rest seemed inaudible for some reaso
n. But he could feel them. The pressure. The sharp jab on his eardrums. And the smell—tangy, and black, and dirty. And when he looked underneath the Humvee he could see Charlie falling to the ground, still trying to get his weapon up as his torso kept twitching and red holes kept appearing. Then he tried to get up and run, but his legs would not work. He clawed with his hands, trying to get away, trying to live. More holes sprouted in his back and they just kept appearing until Charlie stopped moving.
Harper was screaming. The knees in his back kept pressing down, and the cold steel of Kensey’s weapon kept pressing into the side of his face, but he kept thrashing, trying to get free. These are the only ones left! Harper kept thinking, feeling a very real pain in his guts. They’re the only ones left! Don’t kill the only ones I have left!
Julia was still fighting, but they’d restrained her. And beyond her, Harper could see the big metal barn and the red splashes against the stainless steel siding and the crumpled bodies that were dead and dying and begging for mercy and trying to get away. And the gunsmoke, the gunsmoke, the smell of it, the taste of it, and the sight of it puffing out, and the way that each gunshot poked his ears even though he couldn’t hear it.
“Don’t kill them!” Harper screamed. But the gunshots kept going and the smoke kept leaping out and the blood poured right along with it. The people dying along the wall of the barn kept dying, and then they were dead. Dead, dead, dead. Just like Gray. Like Mike and Torri. Like Josh. Like Annette. Like everybody else.
Harper’s screams became unintelligible. For a moment he fought so hard that he thought his rage, or his grief, the way that it exploded in him, he thought that it might just break him apart. But he stayed right where he was. Pinned to the ground. Staring at Julia as she was turned over, crying out in pain and anger and looking at him through tear-streaked eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she yelled at whoever had Harper held down. But no amount of yelling was going to change anything, was it? You couldn’t scream your way out of this. And you couldn’t scream the pain out of yourself. It was an immovable object that settled on you, immense and implacable, and it could not be denied.
Harper closed his eyes, unable to look at Julia’s face.
“Don’t kill them,” he kept mumbling.
But he knew that they were already dead.
EIGHT
DISTANCE
LEE FOUND HIMSELF ALONE.
Night was drawing in, and it seemed the teeming urgency to the day was suddenly gone from the camp. But it wasn’t gone from Lee’s mind. Brinly had retreated to the company of his Marines, who had been given a few of the shanties that no longer had occupants but preferred to lounge and sleep in their MATV. Carl and Tomlin had left for Fort Bragg again, Carl to prep what needed to be prepped, and Tomlin to check on their wayward friend, Major Darabie, who was sitting in an infirmary somewhere. Mac and Georgia had gone off somewhere into their group, trailed by Angela. Old Man Hughes, Brett, and Nate and Devon were gone to find food and sleep. But Lee was still there, staring at the map by the glow of an electric lamp.
The marrow of his bones seemed to ache. The day had been full of violence and sudden, stark realizations. His mind had yet to wind down. His head felt buzzed and out of sorts, his ears ringing annoyingly in the silence of the room. He felt utterly spent, but was unable to simply close his eyes and turn it off. Not now. Not when things were finally getting back into hand.
It felt as though he had dreamed this current turn of events. Like he was asleep in that moment and knew that it was going to be stripped away from him if he moved, if he blinked. He didn’t want to breathe too hard or the thin veil of possibilities hanging in front of him would just shatter and fall to the ground. He had lost it once—his GPS, his plan, everything—and now he had it back in hand.
I can’t lose it again. The first plan is scrapped. We’re hanging on by a thread. You got your life back by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin. Now there’s a new plan. And it actually has a chance of working. You cannot let this one go. You cannot lose it again. You have to maintain this one. You have to hold on to it. You have to make sure this shit happens the way that it’s supposed to happen. You have to think of everything…
And the thoughts went on. And on. And on.
He leaned forward, finally daring to move. He planted his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, shutting the world out for a moment. Maybe what he needed right now was not more planning and thinking. Maybe he just needed to sleep. Maybe he needed some goddamned rest, because tomorrow it started for real. The great, big freight train of his plan was going to start rolling, and it wasn’t going to stop. The only problem was, the tracks weren’t laid just yet, and it was up to Lee to make sure all those iron rails got into place by the time the locomotive came bearing down. Because there were no brakes on this one. It was do-or-die time.
His hands smelled of sweat and dirt and pine needles. It was a grungy, earthy smell. Almost unpleasant. He could use a bath. He hadn’t bathed in… Shit, how long has it been? You’re filthy. There came a certain point when you really couldn’t smell yourself anymore. Lee was not quite there just yet. He could still smell the sourness of his own body, but just barely. Not that it was any different from anyone else. They all smelled ghastly by the old standards. Now he supposed it was somewhat normal.
He pulled his hands away from his face and stared at the map again, as though it had other secrets to tell. Secrets it just wouldn’t spill. No matter how long Lee looked at it. Part of that was just plain old pessimism—so sure that he was missing something—but most of it was just the usual befuddlement of a tired brain.
In the quiet, in the half light of the lamp, Lee felt suddenly abandoned. The world outside was a cold and lonely place filled with dangerous things and people that might as well be strangers. Not even the ones that knew him truly knew him. Not even Angela. Not even Tomlin, though he knew him more to an extent, because he knew how Lee’s mind worked. But who among them could he talk to? Who among them could he go to and say, “Sometimes I want to give up”?
None of them. They would not be able to hear that. Not from him. Not from the great Captain Harden, who kept them safe, and kept them fed, and found medicine for their sick children. Not him. He couldn’t have moments of weakness. It was not allowed.
“Sometimes I feel guilty for the things I’ve done,” he wanted to say, to vent. “Sometimes I think it’s all useless. Sometimes I fail to see the purpose in any of this. Sometimes I look at my rifle and think about the easy way out. Sometimes I think the things that I’ve done will send me to hell. I think that I’ve damned myself for the sake of this mission, and then I wonder if it was ever worth it. If the mission ever even had a chance.”
But who would be able to hear those things and still trust him? Still follow his lead?
No one.
And it didn’t matter how many people out in that camp knew his name and followed his lead or thought good thoughts about him, or thought that they truly knew the man that he was… none of them really did know. None of them could see the doubts he had inside. None of them could see the animal in him. The fearful one, or the one that raged. The one that threw up its hands and called it all hopeless, or the one that bared its teeth and took the lives from people.
They only saw what he let them see.
There had only ever been one person in the world he thought would ever understand anything that was crawling around in the corners of Lee’s soul. But his father had been dead for a long time. Lee’s parents had always joked that he’d been a carbon copy of his father, but it was less of a joke and more of the truth. As he grew older, he began to see more and more similarities, and the two men identified with each other. Ron Harden was a man that Lee could talk to, freely, and without fear of reproach. But he was gone now. And what little of him that Lee had left came in dreams, like ghosts and whispers, though lately his dreams seemed to have been too dark for even Lee’s father to find his way in.
<
br /> Sleep could be a punishment all its own.
But you need it, he told himself, rising from the desk. You need it, or you’re going to drive yourself insane with all of these nonsense thoughts. Quit focusing on the past. Quit reliving painful things. Stick your chin out and look straight ahead to what’s right in front of you. All that other shit can wait. And everything in the fucking world can wait and give me four hours to catch some damn sleep before I eat my gun.
He walked around the desk and almost made it to his bedroll before someone knocked on the office door. His rifle was propped against the wall between the desk and his bedroll. He stopped there and reached out to touch the barrel of it.
“Yeah?”
The door opened and Angela stood there. She looked around the room, seeming to make sure that they were alone, and then she slipped in and closed the door behind her. Lee released the barrel of the rifle and took a seat on the edge of the desk, eyeing Angela and trying to take a read off of her. She wore a strange half smile on her lips, a grin-and-bear-it type of smile. Her hands were stuffed into her coat pockets. Her cheeks were flushed red from being in the cold outside. She was giving him an odd, evaluating look of her own.
“What’s up with Mac and Georgia?” he said, breaking the silence before it could linger. “They in or out?”
Angela looked down through the door, as though she could see through it all to the inside of the Camp Ryder building, where Mac and Georgia and their thirty-some-odd people were housed. “Yeah, they’re in. Partially.”
Lee quirked his brow. “Partially?”
“Mac and fourteen others. That’s all they’re willing to give.” She came over to the desk and sat on it, beside Lee. She sighed with a shake of her head. “They still don’t trust us. Most of them think we’re holding them prisoner, I guess because of the guards. I had to explain to them that it’s not the case. They were free to leave. And then Mac and Georgia explained to them why they’d stayed this long. Because of the hordes coming down out of the north. And I don’t think many of them want to keep running.”