We weren’t more than ten minutes into the next leg of our journey when Red had us halt, briefly discussing something with Bucky—and, much to that asshole’s dismay, signaled Nate to join them. I was tempted to trudge along but remained where I was standing next to Burns, perfectly hating how Nate had turned his back on us so I couldn’t read any emotion off his face. Even bundled up as we all were, it was impossible to miss the tension in the men’s postures, and for once I didn’t think that it was due to the latent animosity between them. Playing games over lunch was one thing; ignoring danger, quite another.
“Now that looks promising,” Hill enthused from behind me. I shot him a curious look which he shrugged off. “If I’ve learned one thing from all my years in the army, it’s that you never want the brass all whispering like blushing school girls.”
Aimes, still too gloaty for his own good about how I kept shifting my pack this way and that, nodded. “Yeah, particularly if it happens moments after a patrol comes back.” He cast a sidelong glance at Hill. “Bet you a pack of nuts that we have to either backtrack half the way to the coast, or walk well until after dark till we make camp.”
Hill considered for a moment. “Walnuts or almonds?”
“Trail mix. No raisins.”
After weighing that in his mind, Hill snorted. “No deal. I didn’t buy the LT’s bullshit yesterday when he claimed that they wouldn’t work us to the bone long before we got to—“ He broke off there, giving Aimes a particularly overdone conspiratorial look.
“Like I give a shit where we’re going,” I grumbled—but the fact that they seemed to know more than I did grated.
Surprising me, Aimes—so far never one of my fans—chuckled under his breath. “You’re such an asshole.” He turned to me. “None of us have a clue where exactly we’re headed. He’s just fucking with you.”
“And you’re all okay with that?”
My question seemed to puzzle them, but rather than respond, Aimes turned to Burns. “She always like that?”
Burns grinned brightly. “You should have seen how she used to glower before they included her in the command decisions. I’m still not sure if Zilinsky didn’t force Miller to offer her co-leadership so she wouldn’t have to deal with that any longer.” He ignored the scathing stare he earned from me, but it sure cracked Hill and Aimes up.
“I bet,” Aimes responded, surprisingly cheerful. “Takes a special kind of stupid to actively want to be involved in that shit.”
I refrained from explaining to him in minute detail what I thought of his assessment. It wasn’t my fault that I thought myself beyond the likes of simple-minded knuckle-draggers. Glancing over to Nate once again, I sighed, telling myself that not being the one who gave orders this once was not going to be the end of me. Hell, it had been such a relief on the journey up to the Silo not to have that kind of responsibility riding on my shoulders. Why did it have to grate that much only hours into our mission?
Because I didn’t trust who was in charge, that’s why, I answered my own question as Nate came back to us, his face carefully closed off, which in and of itself told me a lot. The fact that he didn’t look ready to whip around and go straight for Bucky’s throat wasn’t very comforting.
“Change of course,” he told Burns and me, and the others by extension where they were hovering close by. “There’s a group up ahead that’s moving along the ravine we were planning to cross. Mid-streak size, maybe five hundred strong. If we head northeast for a few miles before cutting south we should get around them.” He paused briefly, his eyes flitting to Aimes and Hill, making me guess he’d caught their earlier remarks. “No way we’ll reach our set camp area before dusk, but we’ll try to get there before full dark. That’s unless we come across anything suitable before that.”
Aimes elbowed Hill, both of them smirking. I didn’t quite see the humor in having to extend today’s march, but far be it from me to comment on that. Or anything else for that matter, seeing as there wasn’t anything important to say.
Even changing course, we happened upon a few stragglers almost immediately, making me guess that it had been sheer luck—and maybe the holdup caused by my much-needed break—that had kept us from running right into the undead horde. Not a single shot was fired, keeping most of the zombies unaware of our presence, but progress was slow going in sprints only a few hundred feet at a time before we had to wait for the signal that the way ahead was clear. I was damn glad for that when it was time for us to take over scouting duty, but at least I got to get a better feel for my tactical tomahawks. The fact that Nate seemed to be everywhere—both playing vanguard and finishing off every shambler that I couldn’t dispatch within ten seconds—wasn’t lost on me, but far be it from me to protest. I didn’t need to see the concerned look in his eyes to know that my reaction times were shit, my movements sluggish even in combat. Oh well. At least the end would be quick if I bit it this way.
Lo and behold, I didn’t, but soon wished a zombie would get too close as the day dragged on. I was barely capable of doing more than put one foot in front of the other when we reached a clearing in a patch of forest, opening up around a derelict two-story building. It looked like it had seen better days—in World War II. Everything was overgrown, the path leading through the rusty, unhinged iron gate long fallen into disrepair. Red was quick to send three teams to secure the building, but they were back in under ten minutes. All that grass and brambles that we had to fight through to get here had served as a natural barrier for the zombies, leaving the site virtually untouched by the apocalypse. I could see why that made it a prime location to set up camp, but wondered how Bucky and Red had known where to find it—and what the contingency plan looked like if it had been overrun as well.
Watch schedules were set up before anyone even got a fire started for hot water, Red once more conferring with Nate for a few moments. When Nate told the others who was up and when, leaving me conveniently out of the conversation, I noisily cleared my throat. “I’m not ditching my duty.”
“Of course you’re not,” he told me as he dropped his pack onto the ground. “You’re up for watch right now. Richards will fill you in on the perimeter setup.”
I was about to start grumbling—to myself only, but still—as I made my way back out of the drafty building, until I realized that, just maybe, getting first watch was a good thing. It relieved me of camp setup duty, and by the time I’d be done, I would have a warm meal waiting for me. I didn’t miss the significance of it also leaving an undisturbed seven or eight hours of sleep for me, something I knew my body was needing more than food and water right now. Well, maybe not food, but close.
I was just in time to listen to Red explain to Parker and Munez how far out he wanted to extend the perimeter so I didn’t even need any special briefing treatment. If either of the soldiers felt like protesting that they were on duty with me, they didn’t show it. Stepping out into the cold wind cutting right through my layers of functional wear wasn’t pleasant, but I forced myself not to flinch as I gripped my assault rifle more firmly. It was only for ninety minutes, two hours tops if anything happened. I could get through this easily. A little quiet and solitude wouldn’t kill me.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to fend for myself, as maybe ten minutes into slowly walking through the hip-high brown grass, Nate materialized next to me, brandishing a thermos in the hand that wasn’t pawing his weapon. “Thought you might want some company.”
I stared mutely at him until he pushed the thermos at me a second time, and waited for him to take over watch for me before opening it. The hot tea inside—laced with protein powder, if I wasn’t completely wrong—certainly went down easily, even if it burned the tip of my tongue a little.
“Not expecting me to be up to holding my own yet, huh?” I jeered around a second cup, stomping my feet for warmth that I knew wouldn’t come.
“I know you can,” Nate offered. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”
“And Red didn’t protest
you throwing a wrench into his watch schedule?”
Nate’s lips curved up into a quick smile, likely at the moniker. “He didn’t mind me volunteering to pull a double, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
I considered griping about special treatment, but dropped it. Fact was, if a bunch of zombies broke through the brambles and came directly for me, I’d be damn glad to have Nate hanging around. Maybe tomorrow would be different, but today I really wasn’t quite there yet.
We continued along the set track in silence until we reached the end of the sector, about a hundred yards outside the gate. “How’s the mood in camp?” I asked, glancing toward the building, the hint of a fire visible in one of the rooms only because I knew what to look for, and my eyes continued to work well in the dark. “Just how much on my toes do I need to be? Figuratively speaking, of course. We both know that literally won’t work that well anymore.”
I expected Nate to roll his eyes at the jibe, but he ignored it. “Calm enough,” he offered. “I think Aimes is just hanging around to find something to rub my face in, but Hill and Murdock seem to be genuinely interested in Burns’s BS. Not saying you can completely let your guard down, but I don’t think anyone will try anything stupid until we’re way farther inland. They must be expecting us to expect something. Let’s give them a few days. Then we’ll see. I made my point today. Hamilton made his. Until I actively escalate things, he’ll give us a few days to lull us into a false sense of complacency.”
Not exactly the most comforting assessment, but I wouldn’t have believed him had he told me I was just being paranoid. There wasn’t anything else to say so we left it at that. I certainly was grateful for his company, and not just because being out here in the darkness, alone, wasn’t the most comforting thing to do.
Time passed immeasurably slowly, and it felt like forever until Munez waited to meet us at the edge of the gate, signaling me that my watch was over. I acknowledged that with a nod, but waited until he was back at the building before I turned to Nate. “I presume this is your shift now?” He nodded. “Guess I should get some chow.”
Another nod. “Fill up with anything hot you can get,” he told me. “And then catch some sleep. Don’t try to stay up, don’t watch your back. Trust that we will do that for you. You need some rest, more than anything else.”
My first impulse was to protest, but instead I inclined my head. He was mirroring my own thoughts from earlier after all. “Considering I’m a minute away from falling asleep standing up, I think that’s a good idea.”
I kind of waited for him to add anything else—or, you know, kiss me goodnight. Stranger things had happened between husband and wife in the past—but when a raise of his brows was all I got, I turned around and made my way back to camp, not needing to check over my shoulder to know that he was watching me until I got there safely. The camp itself had been split up into three parts so our huddle around the fire didn’t look as segregated as I’d feared—or hoped for. Burns was quick to fill up my thermos with hot water and a teabag dropped in, while Tanner pushed a steaming bowl of rice at me. “Which one do you prefer?” He held up two bags. It took me a moment to realize that those were the MREs they’d sent with us on the plane out of the Esterhazy base.
“Give me whichever you guys like the least,” I offered as I went over to grab my sleeping bag from my pack—and, in afterthought, got Nate’s as well, wrapping both layers of insulation around myself as I flopped down next to Burns.
“They’re all equally bad,” Burns proclaimed, not even stopping to chew as he was shoveling the contents of his own Meal, Ready-to-Eat into his mouth.
Tanner snickered. “And not the kind we got back in my reserve days. Still tastes like cardboard, even if it’s full of protein and fat. Here, take the Chili with beans. The texture is a little better than the beef stew.”
It was only then that something occurred to me. “You don’t know that I can’t taste any of that shit.” Tanner gave me a weird look, making me laugh. Well, snicker. Laughter would have required more energy than I felt like I had left to spend. “Virus fried my taste buds when I got infected, or something like that. I really can’t taste it. Hand over the one you like less. Fuck texture. I can’t exactly feel hunger anymore, either, but those weird shakes I’m having are not just from the cold.”
I didn’t even check what he ended up giving me as I dug into the rice, supplementing it with the surprisingly warm bits of meat from the bag. I was tempted to let Burns have the contents of the other small bags, but decided that nibbling on some crackers and sucking sauce straight from the package went really well with the rest of Raynor’s sludge. It wasn’t exactly the feast of kings, but a lot better than what we’d been having for most of the year, out on the road. I couldn’t quite quell the creeping suspicion that the quantity and quality of the food—obviously better than the guys’ joking indicated—was what had Burns more enthusiastic about our present company than I’d expected.
I didn’t need a reminder to heed Nate’s advice. As soon as I’d polished off my dinner, I rolled up in my sleeping bag, fully clothed with my M16 right next to me. As Nate’s shift wasn’t up yet, I used his sleeping bag as an additional blanket, hoping it would stave off the cold. It didn’t, but I was fast asleep long before he could recover it for his own purposes.
Chapter 13
I woke up with Nate gently shaking my shoulder, the strength of his grip indicating that it had taken some considerable patience on his part to rouse me. I stupidly blinked into the light of early dawn as it filtered into the building. “Here, got you something to drink,” he told me once he was sure I wasn’t going to doze off again. It came inside a steaming, open thermos, but the smell alone told me that it wasn’t tea. Electrolyte solution, if I wasn’t completely wrong, and judging from the sticky residue it left on my lips, way too sweet for me to drink had I been able to taste it. I didn’t remember packing any electrolyte powder, even less some laced with added sugar—presumably of the non-toxic kind—but my brain wasn’t yet up to discussing that. I drank it down without much thought, waiting for my body to stop aching so I could get up and put it to good use once more. Since that didn’t happen, I had to make do with the cards I was dealt, but what else was new?
Breakfast was a somber affair, beans on bread and crackers getting munched on with some tea or coffee to wash it all down. The harsh morning air did nothing to disband my brain fog, but I did my best to fake alertness as we broke camp and got ready for the day’s march. Nothing had broken through our perimeter at night, but I didn’t miss a few heaps of rags and rotting meat by the side of the now well-trodden path we used to get back out of the forest. Visibility was a little better than yesterday morning, the fog only minimal, but that didn’t mean that the weather was good. There was hardly any sunshine, and the few stray rays that made it through the heavy cloud cover did nothing to warm me up. We kept heading roughly southeast, but had to backtrack and change course twice before midday. Red kept up a rapport with the forward fire teams whenever he wasn’t part of the advance himself, his maps out as he did his best to chart a new path with every obstacle that we hit. And obstacles there were aplenty, including some deliberately detonated bridges and erected barriers swarming with the undead. Nothing looked recently abandoned, but wherever there was some cover, something lurked in the shadows. More than once, he and Nate conferred for a while before a new course was charted, particularly where architectural obstacles were concerned—with surprisingly little resistance from Hamilton. That made me realize that I knew next to nothing about his qualifications except for his lacking moral compass, making me guess that, unlike Nate, he wasn’t so fond of blowing things up or judging if they were still structurally sound enough to be trusted.
Noon came and went without a longer break, until we got close to a small village in the early afternoon. It was pretty much just four houses, two barns—cute, small, wooden buildings, nothing like the behemoths from home that I was used to—and some
rusting vehicle husks by the side of the road. Red and Bucky debated briefly, but I didn’t quite see why we shouldn’t go in and try to raid what provisions there might be found. Sure, we had those MREs, but they were a rather limited resource, and it didn’t hurt to stock up when the opportunity presented itself. I must have muttered parts of that out loud as Hill—again lurking by my side as we waited—gave a low guffaw.
“You always that ready to get a face full of undead?” he jeered.
“I’m always ready to get a face full of food,” I snarked back. His stomach rumbled in response, making me crack a smile. “And sounds like I’m not the only one.”
“Scavengers,” Aimes huffed, giving me a disdainful look when I didn’t make a move to appear chagrined. At least that was the reaction I presumed he was waiting for. “Always ready to take what isn’t theirs.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Exactly who are we robbing blind if there’s no living soul left to feel the loss? We all have to eat, and seeing as most people didn’t get the chance to hunker down in a cozy little base, that means taking food wherever they can get it from.”
At first, I’d thought that Aimes was just being an ass, but when Bucky gave the order to move in and clear the houses—as stealthily as possible—more than one soldier looked uncomfortable. That we encountered minimal resistance—just a few squatters in one of the buildings, and a family of foxes that quickly ran off in the southern barn—seemed to make it all worse for them. Pickings were slim, the pantries and cupboards looking like they’d been first raided by the former inhabitants, then by the shamblers, but we came up with about five pounds of pasta and some boxes of rice—gourmet menu of the apocalypse. I snatched up some extra pairs of socks and underwear from the remnants of the bedroom of what had likely been an old lady’s house, making sure that no one saw what I let disappear into my pack. Now was not the time to let the next stage of the ongoing battle of the most ridiculous panties that Burns and I had been waging since forever flare up. Even inside, I was fucking cold, and some extra fabric to pad my gear with wouldn’t hurt.
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