The Scattered and the Dead [Book 2.6]

by L. T. Vargus

  He didn’t scream. He just clucked out a few breaths. And he trembled.

  I wanted to help. Wanted to stop and do something for him. But it was useless. Too fucking late.

  I ran.

  It didn’t occur to me until maybe a minute later that I should’ve shot that Crusader in the face. Should’ve put him down right there. Too late for that, too.

  My breath heaved in and out of me. Hot and wet in my raw throat. Painful. Lungs burning. Face flushed with sweat and heat.

  I jostled my way through branches and vines and stems and stalks. Prickly bits grabbing my shirt and pants and trying to hold me there, stop me there. But I bashed through all of it.

  A blind panic seemed to overtake me at that point. I could see, I suppose, but I don’t think the conscious part of my mind processed these images. The animal part of me just thrashed its way through them. It was something less than thinking, the intellectual part of me engaged not at all.

  And my hearing seemed to fade in and out all through this — or I should say my consciousness of it did. In my memory, it’s like half silent movie and half Dolby Surround Sound of a war movie, all those fucking guns rattling on. I know more claymores detonated. I remember hazy images of dirt flinging all around like confetti. But I didn’t hear them. After the first two, I heard none of them.

  My meandering path probably looped me back toward the center of the action a few times. And I saw that Meathead had been gunned down just off the path, that giant skull of his split open, an exit wound hollowing out the place where his mouth and nose had been. A red meat-hole.

  The bodies sprawled everywhere. Crusaders and our guys both. Bleeding and writhing and lying still. I saw one I believed to be Sorensen lying face down in a muddy patch, but it was hard to be sure.

  And I grit my teeth, and I kept pressing forward. Finding openings. Squeezing through them.

  I moved into a clearing, a forested place where the undergrowth had been snuffed out by the canopy. I pushed myself harder. Opened up into a dead sprint, burning lungs be damned.

  I seemed to be pulling away from them for good. All of them. The good and the bad and the in-between.

  The whole mess was behind me somewhere. This tremendous letting of blood back there in the mist. Not quite real in some way now that I’d pulled away.

  And then my toes caught on a tree root. All of that momentum flinging me headfirst into the trunk of the oak.

  I banged my head pretty good.

  And everything got dark real fast.

  Erin

  Rural Virginia

  1 year, 298 days after

  We left just after first light. Even more than before, I couldn’t wait to get home.

  Cameron is still as quiet as can be, but he seemed a little less terrified this morning. I had a thought last night while I sat and waited for the sun to rise: What if his parents are still out there? What if they’re looking for him? I know the odds are that he was taken from them the same way that Spider tried to take Izzy. But I figured I should ask. Assuming they didn’t sell him off like a pig at the county fair, I would want to try to reunite them.

  After a breakfast of cookies, I asked him.

  “Do you know what happened to your parents?”

  He nodded.

  “Alive?”

  His head shook from side to side. I was going to let it go at that, but something else occurred to me.

  “Did Spider tell you that?”

  Another nod. He’ll talk to Izzy a little, but I think he’s still too shy to address me directly. I have to stick to Yes or No questions for now.

  Anyway, my thinking is that of course that’s what Spider would tell the kid. I killed your parents, there’s nowhere for you to run. And I’ll kill you, too, if you try it.

  “Did you see it happen?” I asked.

  He gave a final nod.

  That was that, then. I had no more questions left. I handed him the last cookie in the bag.

  I’m hoping that it will sink in over time that he’s safe now.

  There’s a spit of open land on the highway, with a line of fencing marking the border of someone’s farm and green rolling hills all the way to the mountains in the distance. Flaps of old campaign signs for some local political race still cling to the fence in spots. Scott Frye for Sheriff. Mary Donnelly for Court Clerk. The reds are faded to a washed out pink.

  I was dog tired from all the riding, especially now that I was hauling Spider’s trailer, which is much heavier than mine even without the addition of a seven-year-old riding on top. But as soon as we reached that spot, the one with the ratty old election signs, I got a burst of energy. We were almost there.

  Another mile down the road was the pile-up. Thirty-seven vehicles — Izzy had counted once — all mashed together in one rusting heap. It entirely blocks the way into Ripplemead from the east. A natural blockade for anything larger than a bike. Even we have to dismount and walk our bikes through the grass to get down to the road.

  The way from the west is still open, but there’s a second blockage a few hundred yards past the highway ramps where a mammoth spruce tree had fallen across the road in a storm. I have no plans to ever clear it, and I hope that if anyone comes upon the roadblock, they’ll turn right around, thinking it’d be a hell of a lot easier to just go scavenge in Pearisburg off to the west.

  After we rounded the tree, we hopped back on our bikes. Izzy was chattering excitedly to Cameron, telling him about the swimming hole we found in the woods.

  “There are these tall cliffs, and then a perfect blue-green pool down below, and Erin says if it’s deep enough, we can jump off the cliffs into the water! It’s barely ten minutes from our house, which is further than the river, but there are no cliffs for jumping in the river. Also, there’s an old rusty bulldozer up on one of the cliff edges, so we think it probably used to be a gravel pit or something like that.”

  I grinned, feeling giddy. Two minutes. We’d be home in two minutes.

  As we rolled around the last bend in the road, and the house came into sight, the smile faded from my lips.

  The front door was open. Just a crack, but it was open.

  I stared at it for a long second, the realization of how wrong it was hitting me in waves.

  I vaulted off my bike and ran for the house.

  “Marcus!”

  I was screaming at the top of my lungs, feet thudding over the hard-packed earth.

  I tried to tell myself it could be nothing. Marcus or Marissa could have easily closed the door and not realized it hadn’t shut all the way. It’s not like we have a reason to lock the doors, though I always do at night. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. But it eased the dread in my heart not at all.

  My boots pounded up to the foot of the steps, and then I froze. There was a bucket upended on the porch with its contents — a day’s worth of strawberry pickings — spilled across the weathered boards.

  My heart practically stopped beating right there.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  I was fumbling at my belt, getting my gun at the ready. I wanted to call out for Marcus again, but I was aware then that whoever had intruded upon our home might still be here.

  Izzy caught up with me, and I glanced back and saw that Cameron had dismounted his place on the trailer but had opted to stay near the familiar structure. I pulled Izzy aside and pushed her behind a low mound of juniper.

  “Stay here.”

  “But I-”

  “Just do it.” The hardness in my voice was enough to convince her. “If anything happens, if you hear a gunshot or if I call out and tell you to run, take Cameron and go to one of the caches.”

  One of the first things I did when we decided we were staying here was plant caches of bug out supplies in several places in the woods nearby. We all have the places memorized, and we have meet-up points picked out in case anything happens. I only hoped that Marcus and Marissa had been able to flee to one of them.


  I proceeded with more caution now, slipping up the front steps soundlessly.

  Flattening myself against the side of the house, I ducked around the door frame and peeked inside.

  Nothing stood out. No further signs of a struggle, at least.

  I slipped inside, pausing for a moment so my eyes could adjust to the dim interior light. Just as I started forward again, a clatter of something metallic brought me up short. It was coming from the kitchen.

  The food. Of course that’s where they’d head first.

  I tiptoed through the house, using the shadows to my advantage.

  Back against the wall, I slid down the hall to the kitchen entrance, stopping when my shoulder hit the edge of the door frame. I looked down at my pistol, double-checked the safety. And then I counted to three and swung through the doorway, gun drawn on the intruder.

  There was a man in my kitchen, bent over and rifling through my cabinets. Even stooped over like he was, I could tell he was tall, with long, sinewy limbs and dark skin. I knew him instantly.

  All the rigidity went out of me, and I practically melted on the spot.

  “Marcus, Jesus fucking Christ! The front door is wide open, berries spilled all over the place. I thought something happened!”

  He startled a little at my voice, turned.

  There was a funnel in one hand. His other arm was clutched close to his body. At first I thought he was injured, but then I realized he was holding something. Cradling a small bundle in his arms.

  A baby.

  Jeremiah

  Rural Maryland

  10 years, 44 days after

  I drifted toward the surface of consciousness in slow motion. Reality coming to me little by little.

  The sound faded in first. Automatic weapons in the distance. A few birds chirping somewhere closer. Agitated things squawking warnings for the others. I had a hard time making sense of these noises with the black screen filling the frame in front of me. Couldn’t picture what might be happening in this movie scene. Sounded like an arty war picture, though.

  Then the nauseousness hit like a frying pan upside my head. A kind of intense sickness that’s hard to describe. Cramping gut. Shivering all over. Headache somehow beyond splitting. Cleaving, maybe.

  My eyelids fluttered. Opened. And bright light pierced my skull like a barbecue fork jammed into each eye. Blinding and terrible.

  I blinked a few times, and it helped clear the fog a little. The pain entering through my eyeballs died back a notch or two. I could begin to see the woods around me — sparse green foliage on the ground, the canopy of leaves up above shading things pretty thoroughly.

  I checked the place where my head hurt worst. Felt a little blood there. Christ.

  The idea that I was in the middle of an ambush struck me at last. Full force. The flashing pictures of Smitty’s blown off legs and Alabama’s ripped open abdomen delivered that information in graphic detail. Bloody and terrifying.

  I needed to run. Now.

  I picked myself up onto hands and knees. Wobbled. Waited for my limbs to steady.

  A fresh round of static sizzled in my head upon moving, confusion swelling over me again, some sense that my brain was shifting inside my skull, bobbing in the cerebrospinal fluid like a specimen in a jar of formaldehyde.

  Concussion. I definitely concussed the shit out of myself against that tree trunk. Shit.

  No more waiting. Time to move.

  I jolted forward like an Olympic sprinter exploding off the blocks. Gliding over the bed of dead leaves carpeting this section of the woods. Hitting a dead sprint in just a few paces, my carriage going upright upon achieving maximum velocity.

  But I stumbled almost right away after that. Staggered. Choppy steps as my legs stiffened to try to keep me upright. Knees and ankles bracing themselves for the next fall.

  I found a soft place and crashed down again. Skittered over the crunchy leaves. Kicked up dust like smoke.

  I started to get right back up, once more balancing myself on all fours for a beat.

  And then something crashed through the brush, headed straight at me. Branches vibrating and snapping. Leaves swishing against each other.

  Someone was headed this way.

  I lay down flat, smeared as much blood as I could over my face, hoping I looked dead, though I kept my eyelids open a crack.

  The figure emerged from the green wall where the thickest undergrowth ended, picked up speed as he moved toward me.

  Jenkins.

  The glasses gave it away immediately. I knew he’d survive if any of us did.

  And in that moment a jubilation thrummed through my body. Strange waves of energy that made pins and needles prick everywhere like I was lying face down on a massage chair or something.

  He didn’t see me, though. Running like he was. Winded. Probably in something of a panic.

  Just as I went to signal him or say something to get his attention, a shot fired from somewhere back in the green.

  The slug popped as it exited the front of Jenkins’ forehead. A wet sound. And some debris flung out of that place. Tissue and blood. Red.

  He belly-flopped. Landed flat on his face and torso, legs kicking up behind. All limp.

  He was dead right there.

  I closed my eyes. Lay still. Tried to keep my breathing quiet.

  I realized that the shooting had stopped in the distance. Maybe Jenkins was the last of us apart from me.

  I swallowed in a dry throat.

  And footsteps crept up on me. Slow and deliberate.

  “He’s here,” a soft voice said. Sounded like a kid of maybe sixteen.

  “Is he dead?” The second voice was deep and gruff.

  “Looks it. Face down. Lost his gun.”

  “Well, be careful.”

  They crept closer, and then they fell quiet.

  “He’s dead all right,” Gruff Voice said. “Nice shot, my boy. I’ll get his gun. You check his pockets.”

  The footsteps drew a few paces closer still and cut out for a long beat.

  They’d likely head back once they looted the body, I thought. Maybe they wouldn’t see me somehow. I guess Jenkins hadn’t, right?

  Leaves crunched. Loud. A sudden movement.

  “Oh, shit! Another one over here,” the gruff voice said.

  The boy’s lighter steps beat their way over.

  “Looks dead, too. Blood all smeared on his face.”

  The older man chuckled a little, nervous laughs that wheezed more than anything.

  “Hell’s bells. I’m telling you, I almost pissed myself when I saw him lying there. Grab his gun and check him for ammo and goodies. I got my adrenaline going now. Not even sure I could get my knees to bend to strip the body. Christ almighty.”

  I held my breath as those quiet steps picked their way over to me.

  There was a little click as he picked up the gun.

  My heart thundered so hard, I thought he might see my pulse battering away in my neck.

  He dug through my ruck. Took what little food and water I had.

  And then he moved to me. Knelt so his knees touched my side.

  His fingers wormed their way under my torso, palms wriggling in behind. He flipped me with some amount of finesse. Careful. Strong.

  The open air felt funny on my chest, on my face, and my heartbeats shook my insides, thudded in my ears.

  He hesitated. I thought he’d notice the patter in my neck or even a quaking in my ribcage, but no.

  He dug in my pockets. Hand still narrow like a child’s.

  My heart fluttered like a hummingbird in my chest. Twitchy and strange.

  Nothing good to be had on me, of course. His search wrapped up quickly.

  He stood. Seemed to wait another beat. And then he walked on.

  “All clear here. Ain’t had nothing but the gun.”

  “Damn. Ah, well. Better than nothing.”

  “That’s all of ‘em, right?”

  “Yuh. I believe ‘tis. I bel
ieve we wiped them sons a bitches clean off the face of this here Earth.” The gruff voice hesitated a beat, shifted to a more somber tone. “For Father.”

  The boy echoed.

  “For Father.”

  Erin

  Ripplemead, Virginia

  1 year, 298 days after

  “What the fuck is that?” I asked, not able to make sense of it right away.

  Marissa’s voice came from over her shoulder. “Never seen a baby before?”

  She brushed past me on her way over to where Marcus stood, a box of powdered infant formula tucked under her arm and a bottle clutched in one hand.

  I glared at her, ground my molars together at the bitter sarcasm that seemed grossly inappropriate for this particular moment.

  “Where did it come from?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level.

  “Someone left it on the doorstep.”

  “Who? And why?”

  Marissa rolled her eyes.

  “We don’t know, obviously. We were out picking strawberries. We came back for lunch, and there it — she was. On the porch in a basket.”

  “Her name is Rayne,” Marcus said.

  “There was a note?”

  He shook his head.

  “Just the name, scrawled on a scrap of paper and tucked in the blankets.”

  I considered all of this. Someone must have been watching them. Watching us, probably for some time. Had to. You wouldn’t leave a baby randomly. We’d been chosen.

  Marissa took the funnel from Marcus and began filling the bottle from our jug of purified water.

  “Measure out a scoop of formula for me, will you, Marcus?” Marissa said.

  Marcus looked down at the baby nestled in his arms, then over to me. He moved closer.

  I took a step backward.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need you to hold her,” he said, extending the bundle of blankets in my direction.

  “Marcus, don’t you dare give that baby to me,” I said.

  But it was too late. He was already depositing the squirming mass in my arms.