by Hetzer, Paul
Kera lay in the wheelbarrow facing back toward Steven, her bad leg resting on the left handle. She tried to make light of Steven having to push her in the wheelbarrow by cracking jokes about his old age while he huffed and puffed up the rolling hills fighting the weight of it and its load. He didn’t laugh and she could tell that the overwhelming responsibility of keeping them all safe along with the loss of another of his charges weighed heavily on his mind. She lounged back in the cart, trying to ignore her throbbing knee and stared at his handsome face which was again clean-shaven. God, she loved this man. She had never experienced the feeling so strongly as right this moment with him struggling to balance her on the one wheel up the gentle slope of the hill. Too bad the snow had melted. The toboggan would have been much easier on him than this. She leaned her head forward and smiled longingly at him. He smiled back at her, sweat dripping from his chin in the cool, early November afternoon. They had made the most of their last night in their private bedroom, staying up almost half the night exploring each other’s bodies and making love multiple times, although he had had to do most of the work due to her knee. Just the thought of him inside of her made her tingle and squeeze her thighs together.
Fuck, I’m ready for him again right here and now, she smiled to herself. Then her frown faded. How do I tell him I’m carrying his child? What will he do? she thought for the umpteenth time since she had missed her period, forcing her to confront the realization that she was pregnant. She wanted more than anything to have his baby, and to have many more with him over the coming years. However, he had not talked about their future with her at all. Hell, he couldn’t even tell her he loved her. She understood that the wound of losing Holly was still raw in his heart. However, his wife was gone forever and he needed to face that fact.
I’m not Holly! I can’t compete against a ghost that has such an unyielding grip on his heart! How do I break that grip, how do I get him to see me here in front of him without throwing a baby in his face?
She was the one that was here for him now, with him and loving him unconditionally. Maybe once they found Jeremy his healing could truly begin, maybe he could finally let go of that ghost and live for the future. Maybe then he would finally admit to himself, and to her, that he loved her. Not solely with his body, but with his heart. Then she could break the news about the child and he would hopefully welcome it with open arms. For now, she would settle for having what she could of him, with the hopes of having all of him in time. She could be patient, they both had time.
She felt the wheelbarrow stop and Steven set the legs down gently onto the asphalt. She glanced back at him thinking that he needed another break to rest his shoulders, but he stood with his hands on the handles staring ahead. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and twisting her body, peered down the highway following his gaze. Someone had constructed a large plywood sign and hand-painted a message onto it. READ IF YOU NEED HELP. What was that supposed to mean? Then she spotted something white hanging on the bottom of the sign. Steven walked past her without saying a word and approached the sign. Dontela caught up to him and together they approached the 4x4 sheet of old plywood. They stopped in front of it and Steven bent down and removed what appeared to be a sheet of white paper from a clear packet.
Katy and Angela came up beside Kera and stood with her at the wheelbarrow.
“Who made that sign?” Angela asked, then let go of Katy’s hand and ran to Steven and Dontela, who were reading the paper together. She squeezed between them and read the letters on the big sign. The two adults conversed quietly for a moment before walking back to the waiting women.
Steven handed the paper to Kera and waited for her to read it. When she was finished she looked up into his euphoric face as she absently handed the paper to Katy.
“We found him,” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“Found who?” Katy asked after hurriedly scanning the handwritten letter.
“My son! Jeremy!” Steven grinned excitedly. “If it’s an Army unit, even Army National Guard, Jeremy will be there. He knows I’ll go there too.”
“Oh thank God.” Kera sighed and collapsed back onto her cushions. Although she would never even admit it to herself, she had been beginning to doubt that they were ever going to find the boy again. If he was alive, he would be there. She too had no doubt. Steven reached down and wrapped his arms around her and bodily lifted her from the wheelbarrow and spun her around as he laughed joyously. She laughed with him and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, pulling his lips down to hers. He stopped moving as the electricity of their kiss overwhelmed him and he kissed her back hungrily. Katy and Dontela pretended to be interested at something in the dirt that was invading the road surface while Angela glared at the two kissing adults with a look of disgust.
Steven broke the kiss and smiled lovingly at Kera. “Things are going to be better now,” he promised her. She nodded back, however, a nagging thought in the back of her mind asked if that was true. If they found Jeremy how was he going to handle the knowledge that his mother was dead and the fact that Kera was trying to step in and fill that void in his father’s heart. Things were far from being better yet; she kept the mask of a smile still on her face.
The Humvee motored down the steep gravel road that led to the expansive meadows and fields that surrounded the farmhouse on the McQuinn property. They had had to use a set of bolt-cutters from the vehicle to cut the lock on the gate before proceeding down the half-mile driveway that opened up on the wide hollow where the farm sat, a thousand feet below a 3500 foot mountain peak. When they turned a corner the boy spotted the farmhouse and one of the barns nestled along a flat stretch between rolling slopes. He expected his momma and papa to come running from the house at any moment, then they rumbled over the loose blue-chip to pull to a stop before the old white clapboard two-story building and his hopes fell to pieces at his feet.
Nothing looked out of place or changed since the last time he had been here earlier this past summer. The door remained firmly closed. Before the wheels of the Humvee could stop turning he shot from the vehicle and rushed to the front door. It was locked tight. He rushed around to the back and tried that door also, it too was locked. He pounded loudly while calling for his parents. Only silence greeted his calls. He felt tears well up and overflow his eyes and wiped at them angrily with the backs of his hands.
Where are you? he screamed in his mind.
Jeremy walked dejectedly back around to the front where his two companions were out of the vehicle and leaning against it casually, waiting for him. He walked up to Sarah and threw his arms around her, trying to stifle the sobs that were threatening to burst from his chest. He buried his face between her breasts and silently wept while she stroked the back of his head.
When he got control of his tears he pushed himself away from her and savagely wiped away his tears. “They’re not here,” he said harshly, anger welling up inside him.
Where are you? his mind screamed again. You were supposed to be here, now I don’t know what to do!
He looked up at Sarah, who smiled kindly at him. She looked awful, her swollen neck a mass of welts that had turned ugly shades of purple and black. She had lost the use of her voice completely.
Sergeant Heinlich walked around to their side and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Jeremy, I’m sure your parents are okay. They’re probably taking their time looking for you along the way and haven’t made it this far yet.”
Jeremy looked at the ground and nodded, not quite convinced that that was true. He would have to start entertaining the thought that he would never see his parents again.
“Come on, buck up, kid,” the Sergeant told him, putting a finger under the boy’s chin and lifting it so he could look him in the eyes. “We put those signs up on the highway to catch anyone comin’ or goin’. I’ll bet your parents are back at the armory right this minute eating some hot chow and anticipatin’ seeing you.”
Jeremy grimaced. “Thanks,
Sergeant, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to see my parents again.”
Sarah tried to scold him although it only came out as a hoarse croak. She wagged her finger at him instead, then bent down and kissed him on a cheek. That, he admitted to himself, helped a lot.
Using the spare key hidden under the porch, they opened up the house and made it ready to spend the night, and soon had a blazing fire roaring in the woodstove to push back the chill of the night air that was descending upon them. They would leave out at first light and head back onto the road for the long return trip to Staunton.
Reese peered through the binoculars toward the clump of evergreen bushes between the kiddy railroad tracks and the park pool east of the armory. There was definitely something moving behind them. He walked along the roof of the building to try to get a better angle of view. There was something alive down there; something watching them. He felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise, a feeling that had always been accurate before.
It can’t be the Goddamn crazies. They only have two modes, off and full-on-retard.
He stepped to the northeast corner of the roof and again glassed the area. There they were. Two of them, and they were staring at him right through the lenses of the binoculars. Startled, he dropped the glasses from his eyes and gazed across the open expanse with his own aging eyes. Two more of them appeared from behind the line of bushes, all looking right at him. He steeled himself and put the glasses back to his eyes. Yes, they were indeed looking right at him, merely standing there with hunched shoulders like wolves contemplating their prey.
Crazies.
This was fucking new.
Shit, this is unnerving! he thought as he gazed back at them. He lowered the glasses and jogged back to the lawn chair where the radio and a suppressed Remington 700 set up as a sniper platform sat atop its open case. That was his contribution to the armory’s weapons cache.
He picked up the radio and called in to the comms station inside the building. “We got four crazies scouting us,” he told them. “Permission to engage?”
“Wait one,” Carroll told him through the radio.
Shit, they’re going to be gone in one.
Then Shavers’ voice was asking him what was going on. He described his observation of the four and Shavers gave him the go ahead to engage the four creatures. He picked up the rifle and raced back to the corner of the building and set the bipod on the edge. He lay prone on the tarred roof with the rifle at his shoulder and peered into the scope. The area where they had been was empty. He scouted around with the scope and couldn’t see any sign of the four.
“Fuck!” He grunted and stood up.
Where’d the fuck they go so quick?
He used the binoculars to scan the entire area. They had disappeared as surely as if they had never been.
I got a bad-bad feeling about this.
He picked up the rifle and headed back to the radio. Shavers appeared through the hatch in the roof and rapidly made his way over to the older soldier.
“Are you sure you saw what you saw?” he asked.
“I ain’t got the old-timers disease yet, son. I saw what I saw and I’m telling you it spooked the fuck out of me.”
“I’ve never seen them react like that before,” Shavers muttered, staring off in the direction of the public pool.
“Yeah, me neither. Those things were hunting, and I think we’re what’s on the menu.” His steely eyes locked on Shavers. “Our world’s about to be turned upside down if those damned freaks can now rub two thoughts together.”
Shavers nodded in understanding. “I think we’ll need to double the watch and make sure the ready Stryker is manned 24/7.”
Reese nodded. Could these monsters of humanity now have the ability to plan ahead? It was all conjecture until they acted, if they acted at all. Something deep in Kyle Reese’s gut told him they would find out soon enough.
Jeremy was silent for most of the trip back. He tried to shove the thoughts of his parents from his mind, although whenever he let his guard down they promptly reinvaded. He forced his attention to the other problem burdening his mind. Sarah and that mean man, Nantz. He tried to come up with schemes to get between the two, to somehow sour the feelings that seemed to be growing between them that were so obvious, that even for a ten year old, they were glaringly apparent. He thought about the kiss she had given him and the sweet, warm softness of her lips when she had pressed them to his face. And then his parents’ countenances snuck back into his mind’s eye and he felt that hollow longing to see them again raise its heavy specter, and a deep, empty pain of loss that he hoped would never manifest itself into a terrible reality.
Sergeant Heinlich tried a radio check on the Humvee’s unit as they closed in on the area north of Lexington where they had lost contact with the armory on the way down. Silence greeted the call.
“We’ll try again in a few miles,” he said and replaced the microphone.
Sarah stirred beside him, shifting in her sleep to a more comfortable position. The poor girl looked a wreck with the dried blood in her matted hair and her painfully bruised neck. The Sergeant thought more about the encounter yesterday, some niggling piece that was eating at the back of his mind. He simply couldn’t put his finger on what it was; something different about the encounter. He ran through each scene like a stop-frame movie, trying to determine what was troubling him. Then he about slapped himself in the forehead. The crazies, they’d ambushed them. They didn’t attack when they first saw them like they normally did. He must be tired to miss that glaringly obvious observation. That was a piece of intel that Shavers would want to know ASAP. He picked up the mic and keyed it to transmit, calling Gypsy Hill. This time there was an immediate response. Carroll relayed an order for them to proceed to the refugee compound to see if they had caught any mice. The Sergeant rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Where the fuck am I supposed to stick anyone if there are people there?
He could probably jam two more people in the Humvee, three if they wanted to get real intimate. Shit, they hadn’t found anyone on any of the highways in over a week. Granted, they hadn’t been sending out patrols like they had at first, but what were the chances that the signs had already trapped their first survivors? He had told the boy that maybe his parents had shown up, however, he knew the odds of that were one in a million. He sighed, then acknowledged the order and continued up the highway. They would be at the compound in less than an hour.
The black gangster sat glaring out through the window of the compound’s storefront at the empty Jefferson highway interchange. He would be able to see anyone approaching the place off of either north or southbound I-81. As promised, there was plenty of food and water stored inside the storefront of the business and he and his crew had had their fill and the remainder they had loaded in their vehicles. What there hadn’t been was a visit from the part-time Army boys yet, and his patience was wearing thin. After parking all their vehicles out of sight in an adjacent hotel’s parking lot, he had positioned his crew throughout the yard of the compound. He had them sitting in the cabs of several of the businesses’ rental trucks and hidden in the attached garage that had large doors which allowed quick access to the parking area where anyone coming through the compound’s gate toward the building would be immediately surrounded. He figured he might lose some of his crew in a firefight, yet the trade-off would be worth it.
Ain’t no punk-ass cracker-army goin’ stop the new gangsta-king.
He waved his pistol and aimed at imaginary enemies, mouthing ‘pow, pow!’, envisioning killing more of his white enemies with each imaginary trigger pull. He pointed the pistol at the two women trussed up on the floor at his feet and again mouthed a ‘pow’ at each. They stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes and whimpered through their cloth gags. They would be the first out into the line of fire and would act as a shield for him to hide behind as he picked off his foe. On the sales desk next to him sat the Tec-9, loaded and ready.
“Fuck dem niggas,” Lamar spat. “Dey jump when I tell ‘em jump.”
Lamar knew the crew was as bored as he was. He thought about letting them have some fun with the bitches first, but knew as soon as they let down their guard shit would be going down.
“Tell dem nigga’s sit tight n not do a fuckin’ thing till Ah say so.”
They would sit in this motherfucking place till Hell froze over if need be. As the saying went, good things come to those that fucking wait.
Steven pushed Kera up the ramp that led to Jefferson Highway and the compound that the directions on the sheet of paper stuffed in his pocket had described. He studied the building as he shuffled up the slope, his arms and shoulders aching from the day’s effort. The hike from the house in Waynesboro had been agonizingly slow, what with Angela’s short stride and the rickety cart that held most of their packs and supplies that Dontela was stoically pushing behind him. Even the aches that dominated his body couldn’t dampen his enthusiasm and joy that his main quest was coming to an end. He didn’t even entertain the thought that Jeremy wasn’t with the National Guard outfit, he knew in his soul that his boy was with this group.
There was no movement around the fenced in corrugated-steel building. He ran his eyes over the entire area visible from the on-ramp that led up off the southbound interstate that they had been travelling north on. There was no sign that the Virginia Army National Guard was presently there, or anyone else for that matter. In another world the twin buildings appeared to have been a farm equipment rental and sales business. Steven wondered if the equipment that was laid out so neatly in the yards would ever be liberated and used for their intended purposes or if mechanized farming was out of reach for generations of people to come.