The Soldier (Book 1): Torment

by Lundy, W. J.

  “What the hell happened here?” Weaver mumbled.

  Gyles didn’t want to say it; they already knew what had happened. Mega moved the vehicle across the lanes and into the grass-covered center of the median as the shoulder became too congested. They came over a slight rise and it all changed again. The cars became smoldering shells of what they once were. The men immediately recognized the destruction left by airstrikes. They’d spent enough time in Iraq and Afghanistan to know the death blows of heavy ordnance.

  “Getting thick up here, boss,” Mega said in his typical loud voice. “If it gets any worse we’ll need a new route.”

  It woke Gyles’s nerves, causing him to stiffen and sit higher in his seat. The driver was right; he could see that the wreckage was spanning out like a blooming flower, but somehow it was thinner right down the middle. Gyles pointed to a clear route, and Mega weaved the vehicle through the mess of destroyed cars. They drove through a large crater, the Humvee rocking side to side, the vehicle’s suspension protesting as it moved over crushed concrete.

  Gyles suddenly knew why there were less cars in the center of the road—this was ground zero for a volley of bombs. The Air Force must have pounded the area, turning it into a mass of craters. They indiscriminately killed everything. The people here were fleeing, yet the military had bombed them on the road. Gyles spun his head back to Weaver; he could tell from his friend’s wide eyes that he’d come to the same conclusion.

  Mega stopped the Humvee, and Gyles turned back to the front. “What is it?”

  “I think I see something,” the driver said. “Something alive.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Day of Infection Plus Ten, 1540 Hours

  Interstate 81, Virginia.

  Ahead of them, in the destruction of the road, Gyles thought he spotted a flash of movement. He strained his eyes and lifted his binoculars, seeing only the smoldering vehicles and bombed out craters left by the Air Force. He shook his head and looked back at Weaver, who was scanning from a side window. “You see anything?”

  “Nothing from back here,” Weaver said, his eyes going from window to window. “Mega, you sure you saw something? What was it?”

  Mega leaned his head over the wheel, straining. “It was a man; he was waving at us.” He pointed toward a spot where a highway overpass had once been. Now it was a pile of rubble with a narrow path going through it. “He was right up there.”

  “You’re positive it wasn’t an infected?” Gyles asked.

  Mega squinted his eyes and frowned. “Well, about as possible as anything. How can I be sure of that?”

  Gyles turned back again toward Weaver. “What do you think?”

  Weaver looked in the direction Mega had pointed. He seemed to ponder the question before saying, “Well, nobody is there now. It’s on our way, so let’s have us a closer look.”

  Gyles pointed his finger, and Mega put the Hummer back into drive, slowly rolling them ahead. On hyper-alert now, Gyles kept his eyes glued to the shoulder of the road on the right side as Weaver scanned the inbound side of the vehicle. They approached the narrow path through what used to be the highway overpass. Large blocks of broken concrete were pushed and scrapped aside, making a lane just wide enough for the Humvee.

  “Looks like someone with a big dozer or plow truck busted a path back open after the Air Force closed it,” Mega said. “You just can’t stop a good ol’ boy from moving. If they want to go somewhere, they are going to go. Fuck the war. You know what I’m saying?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Mega?” Weaver exclaimed from the back. “Nobody knows what you are saying.”

  “Sure, you do. I mean all this bombing to try and keep folks off the road. Keep them from moving. Yeah… maybe it is to stop the spread of infection. But people like me… folks like me, we won’t care about that.” Mega’s white knuckles still gripped the wheel. “Oh yeah, you can tell folks, ‘Stay home, lock your doors, don’t go outside.’ But to me and mine, that’s all noise. If I wasn’t with you all in this uniform, nothing would be able to stop me from getting back to my folks in Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln, Nebraska?” Weaver laughed. “What is that, like fifteen hundred miles?”

  Mega nodded his head. “Doesn’t matter, I’d walk the entire thing with a heavy pack on my back to get home. Family is important.”

  “Stop,” Gyles said, raising a hand.

  The vehicle halted just past the break in the overpass. On the right-hand side of the road a man stood staring at them. He wore red-checkered flannel and blue jeans, a green John Deere cap on his head. The man wasn’t waving, and he had no expression on his face. He just stood there motionless. Gyles searched the terrain and could see that just behind the man was a well-beaten and rusted pickup truck. It had the words Carson Family Farms on the driver’s door.

  The trio in the vehicle looked at the man, waiting for a response that didn’t come. “That what you saw, Mega?” Gyles said without moving his head.

  “Yeah, pretty sure that’s him. But he was waving earlier,” Mega said in a loud whisper that would have made Gyles laugh under other circumstances.

  The platoon sergeant exhaled and gripped his rifle. “Weaver, stand ready to get up in that turret and cover me when I step out. This could be an ambush to steal our truck and gear. If it turns dirty, lock me out and no matter what, you don’t give up the vehicle or yourselves. You got it?”

  From the back seat, Weaver hesitated to speak.

  “Sergeant Weaver, do you understand?” Gyles said again.

  Weaver sighed. “You do what you got to do, and so will we.”

  Gyles grinned, knowing that was about the best response he would get from his friend. He put his hand to the combat lock and popped the passenger door. As it clunked open, the man outside flinched. “Well, that’s a good sign,” he said in a faint voice to himself. “Scared of me is better than mad at me.”

  He heard the clanking of the vehicle’s hatch and knew that Weaver would be up behind him and scanning from his high commanding position. From the turret, he would be able to see more than Gyles could on the ground. He pulled his rifle up to his chest and stepped away from the Humvee, pressing the door closed behind him. His eyes scanned the terrain to his front and behind the red-flannelled man. The farm truck was empty. The woods and field beyond the highway were motionless except for the swaying vegetation.

  Gyles focused his eyes on the civilian. “What are you doing out here?”

  The man looked at him and then toward the road. “Sorry, I thought maybe you were someone else,” the man said, looking away, like he might want to run. “You can just continue on.”

  “Someone else? Who exactly were you expecting to see?”

  The man looked up and locked eyes with Gyles. “Someone that could help.”

  “And we can’t?” Gyles asked.

  The man raised a hand and waved it toward the death and destruction on the highway. “You all did this. You killed all these people.” The man scowled. “Yeah, I’m sure you aren’t in the helping business.”

  Gyles suddenly felt ashamed; he hadn’t even considered that fact. It was his people, the military, who had done most of this. Not the infected. His shoulders slacked and his weapon dropped lower in his grip. “Listen, I don’t know what happened here. My unit is separated from our command. We have civilians and local law enforcement holed up in a camp not far from here, if you need help—”

  “No,” the man said. “We aren’t going anywhere. We need a doctor, not a place to stay.”

  “You have wounded?” Gyles said. “I have a doctor back at my camp.”

  The man shook his head and looked around. “No—we aren’t leaving the farm. My son is injured, the wife sent me to try and find some antibiotics for him. Medicine.”

  Gyles thought about the leather bag of drugs Mike had given him. He looked back at Weaver and to the man. “We have some medicine; maybe we can help.”

  The man took a step back, looking
at his truck then back to the soldiers. He nodded his head and said, “Okay, you all follow me.” With no other response, he turned and moved back to his truck.

  Gyles held his own position for a moment longer and scanned the area. Beyond the truck he saw a trail and a place where the wire fence along the highway had been cut. It was how the man had gotten so close to the highway.

  Gyles turned and entered the Humvee. When he looked back, the big farm truck was already moving. He said to Mega, “Follow him.”

  “Where we are going?” Mega asked.

  Gyles shook off the question. “I don’t know, but the man needs help, so for now we’ll do what we can.”

  Mega smiled. “Fair enough, boss.” He pulled the Humvee off to the grassy shoulder to follow the farm truck.

  When Gyles looked back, he could see that Weaver had remained up in the turret. It was an advantageous position to be in now that they were covering another vehicle, and if the man was dirty and leading them into an ambush, Weaver’s eyes and rifle in the turret could give them an advantage.

  The farm truck passed through the tree line then skirted a field of soybeans before finding a narrow two-trek road. The truck kicked up a fine dust as it bounced over the terrain, and the Humvee followed close behind. They were moving away from the highway through fields of green that stretched to the horizon. There was no movement at all; it was the definition of isolation. The truck turned again and crossed over an old wooden bridge that spanned a narrow stream.

  After traveling another five minutes, Gyles saw tall red barns and a white farmhouse on the horizon. Looking far off to the north, he could just see the makings of a blacktop road. The farm truck slowed and moved aside a square pole barn that looked recently built. The man shut off the truck and exited. He removed his green cap and wiped sweat from his forehead. Gyles reached behind him and grabbed the leather shaving bag filled with pills.

  As Gyles went to order his men to stay alert, a door on the back of the steel building opened and two small children, a boy and a girl, ran out to hug the man. “Well shit,” Gyles said.

  He looked back at his soldiers. “Let’s go. Weapons slung, okay?”

  Gyles unlatched the door and stepped out. The man turned, the children looking up at the soldiers with wide eyes. Gyles smiled at them and stepped closer. “My name is Robert,” he said to a blonde girl in a pink sundress who was maybe six years old.

  She smiled back at him and clutched the farmer’s leg. The man extended a hand to Gyles. “Name’s Wayne Carson. These are my children. This one is Jenny and the other guy there is Tyler.”

  Gyles smiled, returning the handshake. He turned back to the other soldiers. “These are my friends.” He pointed first to Weaver then to Collier. “That’s Eric, and we call that big one right there Mega.

  The young boy looked at the large soldier with curious eyes. “Like Megatron.” The boy smiled. “Is he a robot?”

  Mega puffed out his chest, grinning.

  Weaver shook his head. “No—like megaphone because he is really loud and doesn’t know how to whisper.”

  The children laughed, looking back at Mega, who had lost his grin. Gyles turned back to Wayne, holding open the bag. We have a few things that might help. Where are your wounded?”

  Wayne looked back to the kids. “Jenny, take Tyler back to Nana and Grandpa. I’m going to go check on Mom and Steven, okay?”

  The girl nodded and returned to the steel pole building. When they were back inside and Wayne heard the lock clunk shut, he pointed to the farm house and began walking toward it. “I put them all up in the steel building after those things managed to get into the house. The pole barn has no windows, steel walls, and access to the storm shelter.”

  Gyles nodded. He looked ahead at the old farmhouse they were moving toward, and he could see that near the back porch, several bodies were stacked up. Wayne caught his stare and said, “I’ll bury them later. Just been busy.” He pointed to the farm. “They came just after noon. Killed my dogs and broke in the back windows. My oldest boy, Steven, was able to fight them back until I could get to my rifle. I don’t know what they are, but the only thing they understand is bullets.”

  Gyles nodded. “We’ve had our own run-ins with them.”

  They passed the piled bodies and moved up old wooden steps onto the covered front porch. Gyles could see windows were broken and the back door had been smashed open. Wayne continued inside through an old screen door. Gyles stopped short of the doorway and looked at Mega. “Stand watch out here, okay? We don’t need anything sneaking up on us.”

  The big man nodded and walked the porch, dropping into an old wooden rocking chair. Gyles was going to scold him for it but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He turned and stepped into the farmhouse with Weaver on his tail. They moved into a long hallway with tall ceilings and hardwood floors. They could hear muffled voices from a room ahead, and they moved in that direction. Turning a corner into a large dining room, Gyles froze.

  Every window in the room had been broken. The walls were pocked with bullet holes, furniture broken and kicked over, family pictures lay on the floor in broken frames. In the center of the room was an old family dining table. Laid out across the table was a young boy. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen. A dark-haired woman held a rag to his head and was swabbing his face. Gyles moved closer and could see that both the boy’s arms were bandaged. An IV bag was hanging from an overhead light and running into the boy’s upper arm. Dark-blue and purple streaks stretched from the wounds, up his arms, to his shoulders and neck.

  Gyles stepped closer. “How long since he was—”

  “Bit?” the woman said. “That’s what those things did; they bit him.”

  Wayne stepped beside his wife and put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s been about four hours. And he’s been getting nothing but worse. He lost consciousness a couple hours after the attack.” He looked at the woman. “Lori is a veterinarian. She’s been doing the best she can for him.”

  “I’m not a vet; I just help at the clinic on weekends,” she said, correcting her husband.

  Gyles moved closer and, opening the bag, showed her the contents. She looked down at the unconscious boy on the table before turning back to Wayne. She shook her head. “We can’t waste these soldiers’ medicine. There is no coming back from this.”

  “Please, Lori, we’ve got to try,” Wayne said.

  A tear fell down Lori’s cheek. “He’s gone, Wayne.” The woman looked back to the soldiers. “Everything they are saying, there is no cure for him. If something ain’t done soon, he’s going to wake up like those things out in the yard.”

  Wayne shook his head harshly and walked away. She turned back to Gyles, who looked at the corner of the table, where a stainless steel tray sat, holding a syringe and several glass vials. “I want him to get better as much as anyone, but he just keeps getting worse. I talked to the doctor—Doctor Meyers—who runs our clinic, and he said it’s not going to happen. That when Steven wakes up he will be a monster.”

  “Meyer isn’t a doctor; he’s a veterinarian,” Wayne said, raising his voice.

  Gyles looked at her. “When did you talk to this doctor?”

  “We have a CB radio in the back of the house. I talked to him a couple hours ago, but the radio went dead shortly after.”

  “How does he know so much about it?” Gyles asked.

  The woman’s face hardened. “Because he has been out dealing with it for the last three days,” she said with a scowl.

  Gyles put up his hands in surrender. He looked back at Weaver, who was slowly shaking his head from side to side. He faced the woman again. “Listen, ma’am, what can I do to help you? I have a doctor back at my camp; he’s an expert with this stuff. But like your friend has told you—”

  “There isn’t a cure,” she said.

  Gyles frowned. “No, there isn’t.”

  Wayne turned back from the wall and moved closer, stopping and standing behind his wife. Hi
s face was twisted in grief. He spoke with his voice breaking. “There’s got to be something else we can do.”

  Lori turned and hugged the man. Both sobbed. Gyles took a step back; he wanted nothing more than to be a thousand miles away from the room. He’d rather be fighting the infected than standing there watching a family grieve for their son. Wayne let go of his wife and wiped his eyes before putting a hand on the boy’s head. He looked up at Lori, then at Gyles, then at the steel tray. “If it’s got to be done, I don’t want her doing it.”

  Gyles wanted to refuse and walk out of the farmhouse, to get in the Humvee and return to camp. But looking at the broken faces of the parents in front of him, he knew that he couldn’t. He nodded his head and stepped closer to the table. Wayne moved away to a wooden chair and sat heavily. He put his head in his hands and sobbed. Lori walked around the table and took the syringe. She picked up a glass vial and, using the syringe, pulled out all the liquid. Then she placed the full syringe on the tray.

  Looking back to Gyles, she pointed at the syringe. “Just put the needle into the port on the IV line,” she said, then moved to stand behind the farmer, putting her hands on his shoulders.

  Gyles looked to Weaver, and Weaver stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  Shaking his head, no, Gyles took the needle and held it, looking down at the boy on the table. He exhaled and held the line in his left hand. He bit down hard on his lower lip and slowly inserted the needle. His hands shaking, he pressed the plunger slowly until all the fluid was expended. He could hear the parents sobbing. Gyles removed the needle from the tube, snatched the leather bag, and turned to leave the room. He walked swiftly back onto the covered porch.

  Mega quickly moved back to his feet. He looked at Gyles holding the brown leather bag. “You able to help them, Sergeant?”

  Unable to speak, Gyles shook his head no.