Compared to Rollins’s tall lean figure, Granger was short and stocky, with jowly bulldog features. A tough, uncompromising man who’d been a local businessman before the disaster, he’d served as a soldier in the first Gulf War. Solid and dependable, Rollins had selected him for those very reasons. It also helped that the two men had known each other for several years. A good understanding of each other’s capabilities would be critical in these challenging times.
“Me neither,” Rollins replied. “Can’t say they got much of a burial, but at least they got something.”
Granger nodded. “We’re done with the dead, time to focus on the living. Speaking of which…we got problems.”
A couple of hours ago, Rollins had sent Granger north on a scouting trip in search of a good location for the Benton survivors. They needed to claim land where there was good hunting and fresh water.
“All right,” Rollins said slowly. “Hit me with it. What gives?”
Granger drew his breath. “The dam is taken. Survivors from Chattanooga and Cleveland have claimed it. There’s about a half-dozen groups up there. They’ve occupied both sides of the river mouth and made it plain no one else is welcome.”
“Damn,” Rollins cursed under his breath.
While the Benton survivors had been burying their dead, others had been getting on with things. The hydroelectric dam at the mouth of the Ocoee River was an excellent location, with good land to either side and easy access to Route 74. West led to Cleveland City and Chattanooga, while the eastern route followed the northern shores of Lake Ocoee all the way to the far side of the Cohutta.
“How about Austral?” Rollins asked. Farther north, at the mouth of the Hiwassee River, the town of Austral was their next favored location.
Granger shook his head.
A sense of unease ran through Rollins. The good spots were going fast.
Unclipping the recently-scavenged radio handset from his belt, he raised it up to his mouth. Without power, the digital dispatch system at the sheriff’s office no longer functioned, and with reports of prowling gangs in the area, it was vital he maintained good communications with his four deputies.
“Bravo Five, this is Bravo One. Do you read me? Over,” he said, holding down the talk button. “Bravo Five, where are you, Hank?” he added, knowing that some of his newly-appointed deputies still hadn’t got used to their assigned handles.
“Read you loud and clear, Sheriff,” Henry Perter’s voice came through a moment later. “I’m back in Benton.” Unlike their police radios, on their five-watt handsets the range in which they could communicate wasn’t more than a couple of miles.
“What’s the situation at Camp Ocoee? Over.”
An hour ago, Rollins had dispatched Perter in the opposite direction to Granger, to the YMCA adventure camp on the southwest shore of Lake Ocoee, another potential resettlement location on his list. After Granger’s report, he feared the worst and held his breath while he waited for his deputy to reply.
“It’s a real ugly scene. There’s dead children everywh—”
“Hank, is the camp occupied or not?” Rollins cut in, his nerves getting to him. “I need the answer right away.”
There was a moment’s delay, then, “Nobody there but the dead, Sheriff.”
Rollins breathed a sigh of relief. “How about Wasson Lodge?” he asked. Part of the overall YMCA complex, the lodge was a smaller family-oriented building that private groups rented out during the summers.
“Nope. It’s unoccupied too.”
“Thank God for that,” Granger muttered, standing beside Rollins. “We need to get down there right away.”
Rollins nodded. “Hank, get back there right now. When you reach the camp driveway, park your car across it and don’t let anyone through. Camp Ocoee is our designated location. We need to hold it.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll be on my own, John. What if somebody starts shooting at me?”
“Then shoot right back. That’s why I issued you that AR-15,” Rollins told him curtly. Along with getting several radio handsets, Rollins and Granger had spent time at a gun store in Cleveland the other day too. “You’ll have support soon. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Over and out.”
Rollins managed to raise one more of his two other deputies, instructing her to head to the camp as well. The Benton survivors were staking their claim. Camp Ocoee now officially belonged to them.
Rollins checked his watch. “Well, Ned, looks like we’ve found our new home. Instruct the group to start moving out.”
He opened the door to the Charger, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Driving south, he headed for Camp Ocoee. Though relieved his group had found somewhere to relocate, something told Rollins things would get a lot worse before they got better.
CHAPTER 15
The convoy of seven vehicles drove out of the parking lot and back onto Seven Oaks Drive. When they reached I-40 they headed west, navigating around the abandoned cars that littered the highway. They’d either run dry or their occupants had succumbed to vPox. Acting as pacemaker, Walter took the lead. As a soldier who’d served in Iraq, he knew all about roadside ambushes, and Chris had allowed him to organize the convoy’s security arrangements.
That morning, he’d picked up a set of three Motorola 2-way radio handsets at a Walmart. On discovering that Chris’s team didn’t have any, he’d reached into the cabin of his pickup and pulled out an identical set.
“Here, a present,” he said with a quick grin, handing the box to Chris. “Not the best comms in the world, but all I could find on short notice.”
The three spent the next few minutes configuring the radios to the same channel number and privacy code. Though advertising a range of thirty miles, the reality was that because of obstructions such as trees, hills, and buildings, the five-watt radios wouldn’t work over more than two or three miles. The sets had earbuds, however, that allowed hands-free Push-To-Talk usage, and Walter had picked up car phone chargers for them too.
Riding shotgun with him, armed with an AK-47 rifle, sat Tim, an overweight man in his fifties who’d assured Walter before they left that he was “weapons trained.”
The second most important position in the convoy was the trailing vehicle, which Cody volunteered to take up. Chris had assigned Eddy to ride with him. It was important to have their best shooters at both the front and back of the convoy.
Cody was also well-armed. Before leaving the gun store, he’d stocked up on extra supplies. As well as additional ammunition, in a shiny new holster by his right hip was his Kimber 1911, and on the other side, in a leather sheath, a seven-inch hunting knife he’d gotten at Dick’s the previous day. Behind him on the back seat, and within easy reach, was his Ruger SR.
Driving at fifty miles an hour, the group soon reached the junction with I-75 and took the southbound exit for Chattanooga. An hour later, they approached a town called Cleveland, where they turned east onto Route 74 and headed for the town of Ocoee. There, they would turn onto Hwy 411 before finally heading into the Cohutta.
Though they’d brought physical maps with them, Cody switched on the Taco’s onboard GPS system and checked their progress.
“That’s not going to work,” Eddy said in a surly tone. “In case you didn’t know, we’re in the middle of an apocalypse.”
Eddy was a gruff, stocky man in his thirties who didn’t exactly exude friendliness. So far, other than some small talk, the two hadn’t said much on the journey. Cody hoped Eddy knew how to use the LAR-15 semiautomatic rifle resting against the passenger door, because other than that, he would have preferred to travel on his own.
“The satellites are still functioning,” he told him. “Problem is, after a few weeks they lose their accuracy. They need to be regularly updated by the ground monitoring stations. Still, they shouldn’t be too off yet.”
“Yeah? How do you know that?”
“Walter told me.” Cody squinted down at the screen. “We’re eight
miles west of Ocoee. That sound right to you?”
Eddy bent over and checked the map. “Yeah, that’s about right,” he said grudgingly.
For the next couple of miles neither of them spoke. “What did you do before the vPox?” Cody asked, breaking the silence.
“I worked in construction,” Eddy replied. “I’m a carpenter. That’s how come Chris invited me to join him. Along with the fact I have firearms training.”
“Were you in the military?”
“Nah, the shooting range mainly. A little hunting too.”
“That’s good. My dad taught me how to hunt in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not too far from where we’re going. I’m a pretty good shot.”
Eddy gave Cody a dead fish stare. “That right?”
“Yeah,” Cody replied, trying not to let his temper show.
Keeping his eyes on the road, his thoughts drifted back to his father and how, being a soldier, he’d gotten Cody interested in guns and all things military from an early age. After he left the family and went back to Greenville, the small North Carolina town he was from, Cody hadn’t seen much of him. Once or twice a year, though, he’d take him on hiking trips into the Chattahoochee Mountains west of Greenville.
On those trips, his father had taught him how to hunt, so long as he swore he never told his mother that he’d been allowed to handle weapons. Cody’s mom didn’t take too kindly to him being around guns, which he always thought was funny seeing she married a military man.
Cody was a thirteen-year-old boy and loved them, though, and took to shooting like a duck to water. His father told him he had a good eye, fast reflexes, and that he’d make a fine soldier someday. Later, in the evenings when they’d set up camp and his father took to the whiskey, he’d take it back and make Cody swear that he would never enlist, that a soldier’s life was cursed and they had to do the bidding of reptiles. Whenever Cody asked who the reptiles were, his father would let out a bitter laugh and say, “The politicians of course. Lower than a snake’s belly, each and every one of them.”
Five years later, when he got sent to prison for robbing a liquor store, drunk out of his mind, Cody’s mother discouraged Cody from visiting him. At the time, he obeyed her wishes. Later, when he’d overcome his shame about what his father had become, he felt guilty. Maybe if he’d visited him, his father wouldn’t have checked into that roach motel outside Greenville a week after his release, put the muzzle of his Kimber 1911 special under his chin, and blown the back of his skull off.
Turned out, he willed Cody that gun. It was why he had it today. Some people thought that was creepy. Cody didn’t. He was proud to own it. His father put his life on the line to serve his country. It killed him in the end, the slow way, but he did it all the same. He was a true patriot.
Clocking up the miles, Cody resumed his conversation with Eddy.
“How about the rest of your group? What sort of backgrounds do they come from?” he asked.
“All sorts. Tim, the guy riding with Walter, had some type of business, don’t know what exactly. Liz is a botanist, used to work in the Department of Agriculture south of downtown. Greta, the tall girl, kinda bossy—she’s a nurse. Mark worked in a warehouse, and James is a mechanic. Don’t think you’ve talked to either of them yet.”
Neither of the two had said a word when Cody first met the group the previous day. “How about Emma?” he asked. “You know what she used to do?”
Eddy shook his head. “Nope.”
Startlingly pretty, with long brown hair and green eyes, Emma was around Cody’s age. After spending an hour with the group the previous day, he’d noted she didn’t appear to have a boyfriend. Driving home afterward, he realized why someone so pretty was unattached. No doubt, a week earlier, she did have someone in her life, but with a huge kill rate (ninety-eight percent of those exposed to the virus, according to Chris), vPox had put a stop to that. Things had changed so fast his mind hadn’t yet caught up with all the implications of the new reality everyone found themselves in.
For the first time, he saw Eddy smile. “Maybe Chris brought her along because she’s hot.” He grinned at Cody. “It’s all right. Now that civilization’s bit the dust, we can say shit like that again.”
A few minutes later, they reached the outskirts of Ocoee. There was a crackle of static, then Walter’s voice came over the radio. “Attention group, this is Knox One. There’s an Exxon station coming up on our right. I’m pulling in there, over.”
Ocoee would be their last stop before heading up to Wasson Lodge about fifteen miles farther on. If the lodge was occupied, they intended to find somewhere else suitable along the lake shore.
A moment later, Chris responded. “Copy that Knox One, this is Knox Leader. See you in a few.”
Before leaving Knoxville, Chris had issued call signs to the six vehicles assigned radios. Walter and Cody had exchanged wry smiles when Chris named himself “Knox Leader”. He’d made sure to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind who was in charge.
Cody picked up his radio off the seat divider. Pushing down the PTT button, he said, “Knox Six to group, copy that. Over and out.”
A few minutes later, they pulled off the highway and into the service station. Being the last to arrive, he had to park at the far end of the forecourt, along the sidewall of a small McDonald’s outlet.
“Boy, I could kill a quarter pounder with cheese right now. Along with some fries and a Coke,” he said, cutting the engine.
Eddy grunted. “Me and you both.”
Cody got out of the pickup and walked over to where Walter and Chris stood by the pumps. Walter had his bag of tricks out, a similar set to the one he’d used back at the Chevron station: a pump, a length of hose, and a battery-powered drill.
“We better fill up before heading into the mountains,” Walter said as Cody approached. “Who knows when others figure out how to access the underground tanks?”
“What’s the drill for?” Chris asked, anxious to learn exactly how Walter rigged up his system.
“It gets attached to the pump. Quickest way to run it,” Water replied. He grinned. “Otherwise, you end up with a sore arm.”
At that moment Tim ambled over, carrying a couple of five-gallon jerry cans in each hand.
“You guys need a hand?” Cody asked. That morning he, Walter, and Pete had already filled several gas cans themselves and stored them in the backs of their trailers.
Chris shook his head. “It’s okay. Walt’s going to show me and Tim how he puts this system together.”
“My name is Walter,” Walter corrected him. “Nobody calls me Walt.”
Leaving them to it, Cody strolled over to the store. He had a mind to pick up some snacks, also some gum. Things like that wouldn’t last forever.
The entrance had already been busted open. Without any power, it was dark inside, and it felt a little spooky as he walked up to the counter. Somewhere on his right, there was the sound of rustling, then something clattered onto the floor. Cody whipped out his Kimber. “Who’s there?” he said nervously.
A face peered out from around a row of shelves. It was Emma.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, relieved. He slipped the Kimber back in its holster.
“Kinda jumpy, aren’t you?” Emma asked, smiling softly.
“In my experience, gas stations can be dangerous places. Walter nearly got himself killed in one the other day.”
Emma’s face dropped. “Oh, sorry…I didn’t know that.”
Cody waved a hand. “That’s all right. You seen the snacks rack? I’m hankering for some potato chips.”
Emma laughed. “Me too! That’s why I came in here.” She indicated for him to follow her, and the two walked up to the counter where, on one side, a large display rack contained every imaginable snack food. Cody grabbed two packs of Grandma Utz chips and handed one to Emma. Popping them open, they leaned against the counter, eating them.
“Mmmm, BBQ flavor…my favorite,” Emma said. “I’m going to be so
upset when stuff like this is all gone.”
“Me too.” Cody grinned. “How about we grab the rest of them on our way out? We’ll hide them somewhere. It’ll be our little secret.”
“You’re so bad,” Emma giggled.
“What did you do before the vPox,” Cody asked. “Were you in college?” He was pretty sure Emma hadn’t been at UTK. He would have remembered her face.
“I was a pharma sales rep for GlaxoSmithKline. My job was to persuade doctors to prescribe our company’s drugs to their patients. I never felt comfortable doing it. It felt so phony, especially once I knew the reason for promoting most products. It was always about the bottom line, not patient welfare. Still, it paid the rent. How about you?”
“I’d just finished my third year at UTK, studying history. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy it. It wasn’t what I was expecting when I enrolled in the course.”
“Really? Why not?”
Cody hesitated. “I found it dull as hell. I always loved history at school. Especially military history, you know, the Civil War, the two World Wars, Vietnam, all that stuff. The way we had to study it at college sucked all the fun out of it for me. All those stories I’d enjoyed reading became dry term papers I was forced to churn out with citations and footnotes. So tedious.” He grinned. “Guess I wasn’t cut out for academic life. I’ve always been more of a practical guy. Just like my father. He was a military man.”
“I see. Did vPox take him away?”
Cody shook his head. “It took my mother and brother. My father died before then.” He changed the subject. “How about you? Any of your family survive?”
A haunted look came over Emma’s face. “No, my whole family is gone. My mother, father, younger sister, and brother. I cared for them in my parents’ house. One by one, they passed away. All the time I was certain I would be next. It just never happened.”
“Same thing happened to me with my two roommates,” Cody said quietly. “I feel bad I didn’t get down to Phoenix to be with my mom and brother. Everything happened so fast. By the time I knew what was happening, it was too late.”
No Direction Home (Book 1): No Direction Home Page 8