by Steven Bird
I felt around on her head and found an area with apparent swelling. I assumed this was from either the violence of the concussion that had hit the vehicle or from hitting the pavement after being ejected while trying to escape. Either way, I had to assume she may have received a head injury, which quite frankly terrified me, considering the fact that I had no medical assistance available, nor could expect any.
I checked her eyes, and they appeared dilated, with one appearing slightly larger than the other. I tried to scan my memory of my emergency medical courses I had received while serving as both a police officer and an ODF security officer, and I vaguely remembered such things being a symptom of a concussion, but I couldn’t remember for sure.
Positioning her the best I could, hidden behind an outcrop of vegetation deep in the woods, I stood up and visually scanned the area while retrieving my map from my pack. With the sun’s rays now beginning to shine brilliantly over the horizon, I studied the map and compared it to my surroundings.
There was a city to my east and thick woods to my south and west. That must be Dalton, I thought as I tapped my finger on the map.
With that revelation, if I were right, that would put the small town of Villanow, Georgia, directly to my west. According to the map, it appeared to be a very rural area with a vast expanse of woods between here and there. It seemed I was standing on the edge of the Johns Mountain Wildlife Management Area, which meant established human occupation would be minimal, with the obvious exception of others who were trying to lay low in the woods, attempting to avoid the infected or the powers-that-be.
For now, we both needed rest. With Tamara’s pack left behind at the scene of the crash, I removed the thermal blocking personal shelter from my pack and laid down next to her, attempting to cover us both, retaining our body heat during the cool fall mountain morning, as well as preventing our detection while we slept.
With my Sig 556 rifle lying to my left, and Tamara to my right, I curled up for what I hoped to be an uneventful, much-needed nap.
~~~~
I was startled awake a few hours later. It was Tamara. She was moving around and trying to talk.
“Tamara,” I said, placing my hand on her cheek. “It’s me, Joe. You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Her eyes flicked open and closed a few times, blinded by the sun’s rays shining through the trees with the sun now directly above us in the sky. Using my hand, I shielded her eyes and asked, “Can you speak? Other than the blow to your head, do you feel anything wrong?”
“N… no… no, it’s just my head. Oh, damn, this hurts,” she said, reaching for the lump on the back of her head with her right hand. Feeling the lump, she recoiled quickly when she touched it.
“Damn, that hurts,” she reiterated.
“You’re gonna feel that for a while,” I assured her. “But don’t worry, everything that’s supposed to be inside is still inside.”
Attempting a smile without much success, she said, “Everything looks cloudy. Is it foggy here? It feels too warm for that.”
“I’m sure you have a concussion,” I explained. “I’m pretty sure foggy vision is a common symptom of that. Once, when I was younger, I was into riding motocross. I was riding on a muddy track, and the ruts were starting to get pretty deep. Me and this other guy, who I didn’t even know, had been fighting for position for several laps. I tried to take him in a sharp turn right before a jump, and my back tire slid over into a different rut than the front tire.
“When I launched off the jump, which was unfortunately a triple, the bike whirled sideways. I threw it away, not wanting to hit the ground tangled up with it, and bounced my grape pretty hard. Thank God for helmets,” I said with a chuckle. “Anyway, when I first sat up, I felt as if I couldn’t see at all. Then, my vision started returning, but I swear it was delayed. I would turn my head, and it would take a second for the image to follow. It was the strangest thing. That went on for a few minutes before things started to return to normal.”
“What did the doctors say?” she whispered, obviously hoping to hear some medical wisdom from my lessons-learned scenario.
“Doctors? I didn’t go to the doctor,” I answered.
“Men are such idiots,” she said with a crooked smile.
“I won’t argue with you there,” I said as I brushed some twigs out of her hair.
Laying back and closing her eyes, she explained, “I’ve not had a concussion myself before, but this sure seems like the same symptoms described by all the patients I’ve aided in the past who were diagnosed with a concussion. Ah, it hurts to0 bad to think right now, though,” she grumbled as she placed her arm over her eyes to shield herself from the light.
After a few moments, she asked, “Where are Chris and Bill?” She attempted to turn her head to look around, but quickly abandoned the attempt due to the pain.
“You don’t remember what happened?” I asked, beginning to worry about the extent of her condition.
Thinking for a moment, she replied, “I remember driving, then arguing about something, and that’s about it.”
Taking a deep breath, I said, “You’re friend, Chris, took the OWA up on their offer of sanctuary.”
I could see the shock in her eyes. She honestly didn’t remember. Giving her a moment to process what I had just said, I continued, “Chris shot Bill in the head right in front of us, then turned his weapon on us. He stopped the vehicle, turned on the headlights and the dome light, and held us at gunpoint. Well, he held you at gunpoint, threatening to shoot you in the head if I so much as moved. He needed me, but he didn’t need you, and he used that to his advantage.”
Tamara looked crushed. She was genuinely having a hard time taking Chris’s treachery in as the truth.
“Unfortunately for Chris, the OWA didn’t plan on taking me alive like he thought. They also didn’t plan on honoring their offer. They sent an attack drone in for the kill, and its shot came up a bit short, hitting directly in front and underneath the SUV, flipping us over backward and sending us rolling down the hill next to the road.
“When we stopped rolling, the vehicle was burning. The blast must have ignited the fuel lines at the engine. I barely made it out, Chris wasn’t so lucky.
“Luckily for you, you had tried to escape when Chris was distracted by the incoming drone, getting your door open just in time. You must have been ejected from the vehicle during the ensuing rollover. You may have a bad bump on your head, but at least you didn’t die screaming in a fire.”
“Is that how Chris died?” she asked.
I simply nodded in reply. I knew Chris deserved what he got, but she was still in a battle in her own mind between her memory of Chris and what I had just told her.
“Anyway, after the blast, I searched for you and found you up the hill and still lying in the road. I heard a full-sized helicopter approaching, and without the time to consider an alternative, I took the chance of moving you in your unknown condition.”
Taking a good look around, clearly starting to feel better than when she had just awakened, she asked, “So, how did I get here?”
“I carried you,” I replied.
Still confused, she asked, “Where are we?”
Retrieving the map from my pocket, I unfolded it and tapped my finger on our presumed location, saying, “Right about here, I believe.”
“You carried me all the way from I-75 to here while running from the OSS?”
“Yeah, but you barely weigh a buck-0-five, so I managed.”
“A buck twenty, but thanks,” she replied. “I appreciate it. You could have just taken what you needed and continued your mission without me.”
“I didn’t, and still don’t, see that as a choice,” I replied reassuringly, placing my hand on her shoulder and smiling.
Changing the subject, she licked her lips and muttered, “I’m thirsty. Do we have any water?”
“I managed to get away with my pack and the Symbex, of course, but your weapon and your
pack had to be left behind. I don’t have any water left, but I’ve got that filter bottle. I’ll run down to the creek that’s just over that way,” I said pointing. “I’ll fill it for you. I’ll be right back.”
Picking up my Sig 556, I laid it next to her right arm and said, “Here. You hang on to this, just in case.”
“No,” she rebutted. “Take it with you.”
“I can run, you can’t,” I argued. “You’re keeping it while I’m gone, and there won’t be any further discussion on the subject.”
“Yes, sir!” she said smartly, attempting a mock salute, immediately regretting the quick movements involved.
Grinning, I said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be back on your feet and ordering me around again in no time.”
Her facial expression immediately went from somewhat positive and upbeat to downcast. “You think I order you around?”
“Well… I didn’t mean it that way,” I explained, feeling confused about what had just transpired. I mean, how we treated each other had never come up before. We had been all business, seeing a mission through until its end, no matter what the cost, and here we were discussing our treatment of one another.
“I respect your capability, experience, and your wisdom,” I quickly added. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”
“It’s okay,” she said, changing the subject, which she often does when a conversation brings discomfort for her. “Just hurry back.”
Removing the filter bottle from the pack, I carefully walked through the woods toward the creek, which was just over the hill and out of sight. I would take a few steps, then scan the area, looking and listening. I repeated this procedure until I reached the edge of the small, year-round creek.
I knelt down at the edge of the water and had begun to fill my bottle when I saw hoof prints. They were the prints of a shod horse, and they were fresh. Immediately standing up, I looked around again, then noticed a pair of boot prints on the ground just a few feet away. The prints weren’t anything like what a tactical operator would wear; they were more of a smooth-soled boot with a pointed toe and a defined heel. A cowboy boot, perhaps?
Thinking of Tamara being back there alone, I quickly filled the bottle and hurried back up the hill toward her. As I knelt down beside her to help her get a drink, she could tell I was agitated about something, and asked, “What? What is it? Did you see something?”
“We’re not the only ones who’ve watered at that creek recently.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I saw a set of hoof prints from a shod horse, as well as a set of boot prints. Nothing tactical. Nothing the OSS would wear. It was probably just a traveler, like us, passing through.”
“None of George’s horses were shod,” she said, half wondering aloud. “To keep a horse shod these days, one couldn’t be traveling far from home.”
Puzzled, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Even when shod, the hoof grows and needs to be trimmed every six weeks or so,” she explained. “That job requires special tools, such as nips, a rasp, and a hoof knife at a minimum, which George used to keep his rescue horses’ feet trimmed. But to keep them shod, you need a supply of shoes, a hoof hammer, hoof nails, clinchers, nail cutters, and often times, a forge to beat them into the right shape to match the horse’s hoof. That’s not something a drifter could carry around in his saddlebags. No, that’s an indication of a person who returns to their point of origin at some point.”
“So, you think we’re on someone’s home turf?” I asked.
Shrugging her shoulders, she said, “I mean… who knows? That just seems odd to me. It’s not like a man could just ride up to a new town and ask where the village blacksmith is. That was a dying art even before the collapse. It’s just a guess on my end. I may be way off base on the whole thing.”
Pondering her insight into my observations for a brief moment, I asked, “How do you feel? Do you feel up to trying to walk anytime soon?”
Seeing her try to sit up, I reached out my hand, and she took it, pulling herself up to the seated position.
“Whew,” she said. “That made me dizzy.”
“Lie back down,” I urged, concerned that she might be doing too much too soon.
“No, just let me sit here a while,” she insisted, releasing my hand and placing hers on the ground to support herself.
Blinking her eyes rapidly a few times, she said, “Hand me that pack I gave you.”
Doing as she asked, I watched as she retrieved the first aid kit from the larger of the two front pockets. Unzipping it, she removed a bottle of Motrin and shook two of the pills out into her hand. Tossing them into her mouth, she washed them down with water from the filter bottle, then wiped her lips.
“Something stronger would be nice, but hopefully the vitamin M will help,” she said, placing that pack aside.
“Well,” I said, taking a moment to look up at the sky and the position of the sun. “If we’re going to be here a little while longer, I may as well charge the Symbex pack. There’s just enough light shining through the trees to charge it up pretty quick, I think.”
“You do that, I’m gonna take a nap,” she said, blinking her eyes again.
“Here, let me help,” I said as I reached out my hand, helping her to lie back and onto the ground. I then placed the nylon first aid pack under her head as a pillow and went about my business.
Finding an adequate spot where ample sunlight shone down through the trees, I placed the Symbex pack off to the side and removed the fold-out solar charger from the front compartment. I then plugged the solar panels into the port on the side of the pack.
Catching a whiff of something I didn’t’ usually smell when handling the pack, I unzipped the main compartment, and to my horror, I realized that even with the extensive padding Ronnie had installed, the life-saving and possibly world-altering supply of Symbex I had been carrying had been damaged in the blast.
I sat back onto the ground in absolute shock. The pack had been in the front of the vehicle when the blast occurred and was thrown violently back, possibly hitting the roof as it went, damaging the contents.
I began sifting through the dosage vials that were now in disarray, broken, broken, broken, broken… my heart sank as I searched through them, with each one that I picked up leaking onto my hand, with some being completely destroyed and empty. I finally came across one that seemed undamaged, please God, let there be more.
Once I had gone entirely through the pack’s contents, I had counted a total of twenty-two vials that remained undamaged. I don’t think I had ever felt such an overwhelming feeling of dread like I had at that moment. It was like a dark specter had climbed onto me, and was reaching into my chest, squeezing my heart. I truly felt as if I was going to die, and to be honest, without the Symbex, I was.
The trip had started out with two-hundred vials. Ronnie and I had planned to possibly utilize half of those during our travels, and maybe more. But with only twenty-two this early into the journey…? With that count, even taking half-doses, or every other day doses, Tamara and I would begin to feel the life-threatening effects of the virus within a month, and that’s without having any remaining vials to provide to resistance medical researchers—if we found them.
Our valiant effort to break the grip of the beast that was the OWA was over in an instant. And for what? Tamara’s friends had died because of my arrival, and now the entire region surrounding Chattanooga would be left to die by the OWA as well.
Our Hail Mary pass to free the world from the OWA’s grip had been intercepted. The game was over.
Chapter Seventeen
To this day, I’m not sure how much time had passed from my revelation about the Symbex pack and my willingness to stand up and face Tamara with the truth. She would likely be even more devastated than I. After all, it was she who had lost everything she had in this world thanks to my arrival.
Dread swept through my body as I approached her. What was I going to say? T
he truth… that’s all I had.
“I was beginning to wonder about you,” she quipped with a smile.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” I noted as I sat down next to her.
“A little. The fog is starting to clear, at least. What’s wrong?”
She could read me like a book. She knew something was eating away at me—something that wasn’t there when I walked off into the woods to charge the pack.
“I have some bad news,” I muttered as I stared at the ground in front of me.
“It’s the pack, isn’t it?” she immediately guessed. “What happened?”
“You probably don’t remember, but Chris ordered me to place the pack in the front seat just before the drone strike hit. The idiot thought the OSS cavalry would arrive and he would sit there as the hero of the day with his captives and the prize.”
“It’s starting to come back to me,” she said.
“Well, when the blast hit, the pack must have been ejected from the front and took a few hard hits before we came to a stop in the ditch at the bottom of the hill. All but twenty-two of the vials were damaged or destroyed.”
She quickly did the math in her head and reached over and took my hand. After a moment, she said, “What about the data? Didn’t you say there was also research data in the pack? Data that may help the researchers?”
“Yes,” I grumbled. “Ronnie had a friend on the inside the OWA’s Public Health Service, which should have been called the Viral Enslavement Service. Anyway, his friend worked diligently putting together a set of notes and data that she memorized while on the job, then documented later once she had gone home for the day. Ronnie says there is supposed to be years’ worth of research on the little storage device.”
With resolve in her voice, she gripped my hand and said, “Then, we still have a job to do.”
Turning to her, I smiled. It felt good to have someone who truly felt like a partner in this cruel world.