by D. J. Molles
“Are we retreating?” someone asked in a supplicating voice.
LaRouche snapped his head in the direction of the voice. “Who the fuck said that?”
One of the men, lying with his back to the ravine and the rifle clutched ineffectively to his chest, looked up at LaRouche, fear in his eyes. “They’re killing us with those machine guns!”
LaRouche wasn’t sure what came over him. He laughed in the man’s face. The whole situation just seemed so ridiculous. “Motherfucker, you think you’re gonna live through all of this shit? You think you’re going to reach old age in this fucking world? You’re either a killer or you’re being killed, and eventually even the killers get killed. Because if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, isn’t that fucking right?”
The man glared back. “We know about you, Crazy LaRouche. We know you got a death wish, but the rest of us don’t.”
Do I have a death wish? LaRouche wondered, but the smile didn’t leave his face. He just shook his head. “Run then, you fucking cockroach. Go fucking hide. Scrape a few more days out of your worthless life.”
The man just stared.
LaRouche leveled his rifle at him, the smile finally leaving his mouth. “Run. Before I shoot you down myself.”
Half of them ran, not doubting for a second that Crazy LaRouche would in fact shoot them down, and not having the balls to push back though they outnumbered him. He watched them go, feeling suddenly light-headed with the dawning of imminent truth.
Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I do have a death wish.
He looked at the remaining few men. The Followers of the Rapture. Really just a bunch of people as dumb and lost as he was, tagging along for a ride because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. It was better in their minds to be with the wrong group than to be totally alone, because all they wanted was to live. But LaRouche was not encumbered by beliefs. He knew what he was. He knew what he deserved. And maybe this seemed like the best way to make it happen. In some twisted way, in his twisted, fucked-up heart, it was best to go down fighting, no matter who you were fighting for.
“The rest of you gonna man the fuck up and come with me?” he asked almost absently, not really caring what they did in the end.
But they rose to their feet.
LaRouche turned his back on them and didn’t wait to see if they were following. Over the edge of the ravine, he could hear the firefight reaching that point after the initial clash of guns, where the people embroiled in it were slowing down, reloading, choosing their shots. Gunfights had a rhythm to them, one that LaRouche knew quite well. They lulled and then quickened, up and down, up and down.
He made his way quickly through the ravine, picking up stragglers as he went. Some came; others stayed hunkered down in fear. LaRouche paid them no mind. Projectiles thrashed through the woods and sprinkled bits and pieces of branches and bark down onto their heads. LaRouche couldn’t tell how much return fire the Followers were giving, but it didn’t matter anymore.
He bellied up to the side of the ravine and looked over. Now they were about fifty yards into the woods, and he could see the glow of the Marine encampment; rays of light were coming through the trees, catching in the haze of spent propellant. They’d worked themselves into the eastern corner of the clearing, and he could see the back of the trucks now. There were five trucks, and three of them had manned machine guns working against the Followers’ assault. But the gunners were backlit and struggling to maintain suppressive fire in the entire 360-degree attack.
“We can do this,” LaRouche said, more to himself than anyone else. He turned and looked at the ones that had gathered to him. There were maybe a dozen. Maybe enough. Maybe not. They would have to see.
He pointed toward the clearing. “We need to close the distance here.” He raised his voice to be heard. “We’re gonna work to the edge of the woods. Concentrate your fire on the machine gunners. Put them down. When the guns go down, we move in. That clear?”
No one responded verbally. A few nodded.
LaRouche climbed the edge of the ravine, then stopped, kneeling in the leaves. He turned to look behind him, frowning as a new sound reached him.
“What?” someone asked. “What’s wrong?”
It came upon them fast and low. One second it was just a buzz in the background, and then it became a whirlwind roar, shaking the trees and thundering just above the tops. LaRouche looked up and couldn’t see the helicopter itself, but he could see the twin blooms of fire coming off its sides as the two door gunners opened up with the M240s.
LaRouche and every man with him tried to flatten themselves out, but the rounds found them anyway, punching down through the trees and smashing through their backs and chests. He listened to the rounds impacting the ground all around him and finding the flesh of the men that were following him, but they didn’t find him.
The helicopter passed.
Those that were still alive began to scream and run. The gunfire was suddenly cut in half, as scores of the Followers cut and run at the sight of the bird over them, chewing through their ranks and demolishing their positions.
LaRouche rolled onto his side and watched the men flee, cursing and yelling, some of them hobbling along, injured. There was a dark sense of amusement that crept over him. Fear, most certainly, but he couldn’t stop the laugh again. That black, abysmal laugh that forced its way out of him with almost a painful violence.
“Run, you fucks!” he wheezed, drawing himself up off the ground. “Run the fuck away! I don’t fucking need you!” He stood there in the night, with the guns crashing behind him and the light casting about at weird angles through the trees, as the limbs and branches shook and rattled. He could just barely see the running men’s shapes in the woods but he watched in fascination as they began to fall. Sprawling on the ground like they’d been snared by some chest-level tripwire, and the sound that accompanied this odd dance was a muffled chack-chack-chack sound that for a brief moment seemed utterly alien to LaRouche, and his brain didn’t quite piece it together.
Not until one of the fallen men started screaming, clutching his belly as another chack put him down, did LaRouche realize what it was. He’d been an infantryman, not any sort of special operations soldier. He’d never been issued a suppressor for his weapons and had never even fired one. But somehow he knew the sound. He knew that’s what it was.
Those aren’t regular Marines…
LaRouche ducked behind a tree and got low.
The helicopter circled around again, the guns chattering more sporadically. He could hear screams of wounded men and calls from others to pull back, to run; everyone was splitting and running, just like he knew that they would.
I should have told Chalmers this was a horrible idea.
But he’ll figure it out.
He put his back to the tree and put his butt on the ground. He wasn’t sure if they’d seen him yet. He wasn’t even sure who they were. But the shooting had been too quick, too accurate in the gloom of night, for these to be regular grunts shooting through peep sights. They had suppressors, and their shooting made it seem like they were seeing perfectly fine in the dark. They’ve got NVGs.
He leaned out, just an inch or two, just so he could look into the woods, into the darkness, and see if anything was moving. And he could see them. Four of them. Just black shadows moving quickly over the forest floor, scanning the bodies as they stepped over them, calling things back and forth.
“These three are down,” one said.
Another stood over a wounded man and finished him. “All clear.”
The first shadow to speak straightened and seemed to look to his left, where the other two shadows were moving quickly through the dead and dying. “Hey, Harden, we’re all clear. Moving.”
A few seconds stretched into what seemed like several minutes. The name rattled around in LaRouche’s head like a hard opening shot from a pinball that ricochets around inside the machine before finally rolling toward the paddles. Hal
f of his brain knew damn well what the name was—Harden, as in Lee Harden, you dumbfuck—but the other half wanted to remain obstinate—Lee’s gone. Along with Camp Ryder. The radios. No one was answering the radios and what the hell do you think that means?
Lee’s gone. Probably dead.
This is a different Harden.
Different. It’s got to be different. There’s just no possible way.
He settled back behind the tree and realized he was shaking badly.
Why? Why am I shaking? Why do my guts feel like liquid right now? His heart was thundering like it hadn’t in a long time. Not since he’d been with Wilson and Father Jim. Not since the time when he actually cared whether he was alive or dead. Not since the time when he thought he deserved a bullet. Now his heart seemed to be trying to prove that it was still alive, thrashing around in his chest, uncomfortably hard.
What if it is Lee? What if he knows what you did?
What the fuck does it matter if he knows? Am I a fucking kid? Am I in trouble with my father? Fuck Lee and fuck his goddamned missions! He’s the one that put me in this situation. He’s the one that saddled me with all of this stupid shit when I wasn’t FUCKING READY. Go blow the fucking bridges? Go take on the goddamned world? Go do what I say, and by the way, everyone’s gonna die if you don’t succeed!
But if he’s alive…
He’s not. It’s not THAT Harden.
But if it is…
Then the mission. The mission. Maybe…
Maybe there’s still a chance.
“Heads up!” someone yelled.
LaRouche jerked his head in the direction of the call.
One of the shadows was standing not fifteen feet from him. The muffled chack of the suppressed rifle was much louder when it was so close—and pointed right at him. LaRouche didn’t have time to react. He saw the wood on the side of the tree splinter, and felt something rip through his side, and the first weird thought that came to him was, Fuck! I got a splinter!
Then the pain was there, quite suddenly, and he knew it wasn’t just a splinter in his side.
He cried out and toppled, clutching his side, not quite sure why he wasn’t fighting to the death. It was strange how, despite the fear, he could still feel ashamed, still feel disappointed that he hadn’t kept up his plan… Oh my God, this fucking hurts.
I should fight now. Get myself shot dead before I can just bleed out and die shitting my pants in pain…
But in desperation, what came out of his mouth was “Lee! Captain Harden!”
Maybe that was the only reason they didn’t shoot him dead right there. He couldn’t even understand why he hadn’t taken the death that he knew he deserved. He should’ve just taken it when he had the fucking chance…
He felt sick and faint. His hands on his side were wet and sticky.
They got me, they got me good.
One of the shadows was standing over him. It had some contraption covering half of its face, but LaRouche knew the other half of that face just as well as he knew anyone’s face.
Lee Harden lifted the night-vision monocular from his eye and looked down at LaRouche, confusion on his face, the muzzle of his rifle still looming in LaRouche’s vision.
“LaRouche?” he said, the words like steel dragged over gravel. “Is that you?”
TWENTY-TWO
CROSSING THE RUBICON
LEE DIDN’T KNOW WHO was more shocked, himself or the man below him. Lee wasn’t even sure that it was LaRouche at his feet. He hadn’t responded to Lee’s question. But he damn well looked like him, though his face had grown gaunter than Lee remembered, and his beard was longer than LaRouche typically kept it. The eyes didn’t lie, though. Hard and cold and sometimes even wanton, but they could be kind when they wanted to be. They were strange eyes, and they belonged to only one man that Lee knew.
Lee didn’t move the muzzle of his rifle, and he didn’t take his finger off the trigger. “What’s your name, motherfucker? You better say something quick.”
“LaRouche,” the man beneath him mumbled. “My name’s LaRouche. Jesus… Lee…”
Both of them tried to comprehend, and failed.
Lee realized his mouth was working like he had words to say but couldn’t get them out. “What the fuck… what… what…?”
The haggard, mad-looking man below him seemed caught in his own dilemma of confusion. But Lee could see there was something more to it. This was not just confusion. This was LaRouche wanting to say something, but not having the guts.
“Wilson said that you disappeared!” Lee said.
LaRouche seemed to wilt at those words. “Did Wilson… did they blow the bridges?”
Lee’s eyes narrowed. “Wilson is fucking dead. And what the fuck are you doing here, LaRouche?” He glanced around them, not wanting to believe, but knowing, because the truth was not coy. It was blatant. Oftentimes you don’t want to acknowledge it, but that is the working of your own brain. Truth is not relative. It simply is. “Are you…?”
LaRouche grimaced and laid his head back into the dirt, struggling with the pain in his side. “Lee, you know damn well what I am. That’s why you used me. Just like they used me. Don’t try to play ignorant now.”
Lee’s jaw worked. “What happened? What happened with your group?”
LaRouche’s eyes were glistening, but Lee couldn’t tell whether it was from grief or pain. Maybe some of both. Maybe he would’ve been able to keep one locked down, but not both. He blinked rapidly through the tears, straining, his teeth grit, his hands plugging his wounded side.
“I killed Father Jim,” LaRouche belted out very suddenly. And it was like watching a building implode, all the structures taken out in microseconds. The demolition of a man. He writhed onto his side, his face twisting up in grief now rather than physical pain. He tried to speak, but just coughed and spluttered, senselessly.
“You did what?” Lee asked, though he’d heard perfectly well. The words were just space filler for his inability to formulate some other question.
“I fucking killed him!” LaRouche bellowed. “I did it! I did it! I don’t even fucking know why I did it! We were arguing and then we were fighting and then I just… I just… fuck!” LaRouche leaned up onto his elbows, looking accusingly up at Lee. “What the hell do you want from me? What do you want?”
Lee looked down, his nose wrinkled like he’d smelled something bad. But he had no words. Behind them, coming from the clearing, they could hear whoops and cries of victory. The gunshots were still coming, but they were sporadic now. Lee was well aware of the time restraints. Well aware of the fact that Tomlin was sitting at the top of a building, surrounded by infected. They didn’t have time for prisoners. They didn’t have time to figure out why LaRouche was here, apparently on the wrong side. Lee could feel the anger that he’d felt when Tyler Bowden had held Harper and Julia hostage, the same anger he’d felt when he’d realized that Tyler had gunned down Harper to get away. But what good was it? What did it do for him? It was an impotent raging, and nothing more.
Lee felt disappointment, sudden and harsh and deep. “Oh, LaRouche. Oh, you…” He clenched his fist and his teeth at once and let the rest of the words burn out in a hiss of breath.
LaRouche laid his head back into the leaves and closed his eyes. “Just fucking kill me,” he said quietly. “Do it. Fucking kill me.”
And perhaps Lee was just being his usual stubborn self, but that sealed it. He just couldn’t do it again. Whether it was LaRouche’s words that had flipped the switch, or Lee’s own actions—all the violence that he’d added to himself, all the decisions that never seemed to desensitize him, but rather just kept compounding on him.
He bared his teeth and shoved the rifle further into LaRouche’s face, trying to wrap his brain around what LaRouche had said. And what LaRouche being here meant. He killed Father Jim. He killed him, and then he abandoned his group, and maybe if he hadn’t abandoned his group, Wilson would still be alive. And now he’s here. Now he’s
here doing what?
You know damn well what he’s doing here.
What he’s become.
“You’re one of them,” Lee said. A simple accusation, but accurate enough. “You’re a piece of shit, LaRouche. I don’t fucking believe you. You stupid motherfucker, have you ever stood for anything in your fucking life? Or do you just follow fucking orders?” He wanted badly to pull the trigger. But he didn’t. He just pulled the rifle away.
LaRouche’s eyes widened. “What are you doing? Why don’t you fucking kill me?”
Because it’s what you want. Because it’s what you deserve.
Lee knelt down in the leaves, next to LaRouche.
Mitch looked around, antsy. “Captain, we need to get a move on. Followers have been pushed back. Helicopter’s running low on fuel.”
“I fucking know,” Lee said shortly. He turned his attention back to LaRouche. “Did you know that Harper’s dead?” he asked suddenly. “He was killed. Not two hours ago. By a man who was supposed to be a friend of mine. Because he knew that I was going to kill him if I caught him. And he figured that if he shot Harper in the gut, it would distract me long enough for him to get away. And you know what the fucking problem is, LaRouche? The problem is, that made perfect sense to me. And I think that maybe I would have done the same thing myself. And that is not acceptable.” He stood up. “But loose ends fucking bite you in the ass, don’t they? They always do. So now I wonder if it’s the right thing to do to kill you or not. I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anymore.”
“You want me to fucking kill him?” Morrow asked.
“No,” Lee spat out. He pointed a finger right into LaRouche’s face. “It doesn’t matter what the fuck you’ve done. Everyone knows wrong from right. And if you wanna die, that’s fine. I think you fucking deserve it. I really do. There’s a million different ways for you to get yourself killed, if that’s what you really want, LaRouche. But it ain’t gonna be from me. I’ve got the bridges blown along the Roanoke River and a couple million infected that have made it across before I could get that done. And I’ve got people that are waiting for me so that we can solve this fucking problem. That’s what I’m going to do, LaRouche. I don’t know where the fuck you went wrong, and I don’t even fucking care anymore. I don’t have the time to deal with you. You chose your path, and I chose mine. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I know that I’m going to walk away from you. And I don’t want to see your fucking face in the light. As far as I’m concerned, you were dead when you split from Wilson. And now you make some goddamned choices when I walk away. And maybe you make the right ones, or maybe you don’t. That’s up to you. But I’m fucking done.”