River of Night

by John Ringo

“Well, no doctors or engineers, but the older guy says that he’s rebuilt classic cars,” answered Biggs.

  “Classic cars? How many nineteen fifty-five Thunderbirds are we operating at this time, Mr. Biggs?”

  “Hey, he’s as close to a mechanic as I have found!” Biggs protested vehemently. A few bits of snack food joined the remnants of chocolate that already decorated his beard. “If he doesn’t work out, we can use him for something else.”

  “Really, Mr. Biggs?” Harlan said, pausing in front of the older tall man with a silver crew cut. “And why’s that?”

  “Huh?”

  “What qualities does he seem to have that made it worthwhile to, as you say, ‘waste the gas to bring him in’?”

  Harlan awaited a response, noting the bloody cut across the captive’s forehead, the watchful eyes, and the captive’s carefully closed expression.

  Biggs appeared to be getting agitated. He swallowed and looked around the crossroads for inspiration.

  “Ah, he looked older, maybe not as hot headed as some of the younger men, you know,” he said, offering the explanation in apologetic tones. “Also, we brought back a woman from the same place. Daughter-in-law, I think. Figures, it gives him a reason to make nice, not make trouble?”

  Harlan looked over Biggs’s shoulder and noted the expression on the face of Biggs’s deputy. Davy Khorbish, another recruit from Green’s prison bus scheme, was listening intently. A black swastika tat crept out of his collar and up the front of his throat. He was staring hard at the back of Biggs’s head.

  Harlan walked around the end of the short coffle of three able-bodied men, striding until he stopped on the opposite side of the original subject of his examination. Loki, like a massive threatening shadow, strode behind him.

  Internally, Harlan Green sighed. His lieutenants varied in their treatment of new inductees to their system. Sometimes solo captures were stuffed into the back of a truck under guard. Larger numbers of recruits, especially men, were handled more cautiously. Adults were usually tied together. Biggs had a thing for making sure that new people felt the weight of their new position so he kept them chained neck to neck with one hand cuffed to the coffle chain, leaving the other free for balance. It was a humiliating position and didn’t do much to incline inductees to cooperate.

  It was clear that Biggs had missed an important detail. One that Harlan Green had not.

  An object lesson was required.

  Again.

  This was going to compromise the reliability of this batch of prisoners, but if Harlan couldn’t effectively delegate the basics of screening and collection, then his organization could not scale. And it had to scale, quickly.

  “So you’re claiming that you personally examined the prisoner—carefully?” Harlan turned very deliberately to look at Biggs as he asked the next question. “Did you ask your deputy, the deputy that I appointed, for his opinion?”

  Khorbish’s eyes glittered.

  “Well, sorta. But look, this dude, uh, I mean, he’s healthy enough,” Biggs said, swinging a “starter” made of knotted line against the prisoner’s thigh. “Plenty of muscle for an older dude. Minimum, he can farm, or fetch and carry, or push cars off the road. Lots of cars to clear, Boss. I mean, Governor.”

  “What do you think?” Green addressed Khorbish for the first time.

  “Dude is trouble,” the shorter ex-con replied. “I smelt it. Tole’ Biggs. Said we should grease’m. Biggs said to shut up, that the dude was good labor material—would work hard.”

  Green turned back to the object of their scrutiny. After a further moment of appraisal he made up his mind.

  “And would you do that for us?” Harlan said, addressing the erect man directly. “Are you going to work cooperatively, contribute to the new community?”

  Hard, pale blue eyes met the mild inquisitive gaze of the mastermind, but the man held his peace and nodded.

  “Really?” Harlan said, extending his hand and slid the sleeve on the man’s torn work shirt higher, fully exposing the man’s forearm. It was decorated with a muddy, aging tattoo of a helmeted bulldog smoking a cigar. “I rather don’t think so. Mr. Loki, if you please.”

  Loki stepped laterally, ensuring that nothing valuable was on the other side of the gray-haired veteran. As fast as a man could blink, he drew his pistol and shot the prisoner in the head. The fresh corpse fell, dragging the other two chained men to their knees. A child screamed in the background.

  “If you’d an ounce of imagination, you would have smelled the imprint that military service leaves on some men,” Harlan said, ignoring the screams of surprise. He carefully stepped away from the growing pool of blood and faced Biggs. “If you’d consulted seriously with the partner that I assigned, you might’ve looked more closely. Had you bothered to check, you would’ve found the tattoo. You might’ve remembered my orders about law enforcement and military types. As long as they don’t actively resist, you keep them separate and under individual guard until I can personally inspect them. This one would never have worked for us after the way you treated him. The woman’s family is dead, yes? Dead from your operation? Instead of a potentially valuable asset, what you made for me, what you’ve wasted my time on, is just another corpse, in a world already full of corpses. Making more is easy. Very easy. Do you understand?”

  “Maybe. I mean, uh, yes!” protested the ex-con, staring at the body laying at his feet. “But, you got to make an impression, and if they fight, well, you can’t leave resistance behind. But you can’t just waste my gleanings! That’s my money! We got rights, like you said!”

  He subsided as Loki loomed behind Green.

  Khorbish carefully slid out from behind Biggs.

  “Rights?” answered Harlan. He looked first at Biggs, and fought his impulse to slap the stupid candy bar out of his hand. He then nodded at the assembled group. “What you have are responsibilities. To me,” he said, tapping his own chest. A gleaming woven bracelet of fine fibers gleamed with blue and golden highlights against his narrow wrist.

  “To them,” he said, gesturing to Eva, Loki and the other lieutenants.

  “You even have a responsibility to the new recruits that we glean from this benighted countryside.”

  His arm movement expanded to take in the huddle of chained men, the kids who were sobbing and the few women under guard.

  “But you speak of your rights,” Harlan said, eyes glinting. He stepped closer to Biggs, purposefully invading the other man’s space, close enough that he was confident that Biggs could feel his boss’s breath on his face. Harlan lowered his voice, ensuring that only the ex-con could hear him. “I’m leaving this convoy. I’ve other teams to govern. After this fuck up, Biggs, you’ll immediately return to base camp with the gleanings accumulated so far. I can’t babysit you, Biggs. I’ll let you come back but it will be your last chance, Mr. Biggs. Your very. Last. Chance. When you return, you’ll complete the sweep and never, ever leave a job half done again. To do so is to risk this entire plan. Now apologize to me in a nice clear voice, so everyone can hear.”

  Harlan Green gestured casually as he stepped back, the movement of his arm encompassing the numerous Gleaners, the work-gang and the newest prisoners.

  “Make them believe it,” he said.

  Biggs’s eyes flickered to Loki for a moment, but he didn’t even hesitate. His posture remained upright and he raised his voice for the benefit of the large crowd, while looking directly at Harlan.

  “Governor Green, I humbly apologize for wasting your time with that trash. It won’t happen again,” he enunciated carefully.

  Harlan looked at him for several long moments. Despite Biggs’s outward calm, the open collar of his looted shirt revealed skin that was darkening with a suffusion of blood, making his facial tattoos and neck harder to distinguish.

  Which was fine. Anger and fear were Green’s tools-in-trade.

  Green made sure that Biggs felt his regard and then turned to address the entire assembly, focusing o
n the newest raw material. A few steps away, the corpse was still leaking onto the pebbled, gray pavement.

  “My name is Governor Green,” he began, framed against the dark clouds overhead. “I’m the head of the new civil government in this area. Let me explain how your life has changed.”

  October 29th

  Cumberland Uplands, western Virginia

  The Twelve Gauge Ranch

  Robbie Robbins inhaled mightily, enjoying the scent of fresh cut timber and crisp fall air. Then he mopped his brow with a dull OD green bandanna that he produced from a hip pocket. Once his hands were dry and clean-ish, he produced a can of Copenhagen and with an unthinking but expert flick of the wrist he settled the tobacco in a compact mass before packing a generous wad into his cheek.

  He and his teammates hadn’t been able to operate the portable sawmill for months, lest the din attract unwelcome and ravenous guests. However, early in the crisis, the heavily wooded pocket valley had rung with the snarl of chainsaws and ripsaws as they harvested lumber from their property. He sighed, enjoying the cool numbing sensation of his fresh dip, and surveyed the pile of freshly re-stacked, seasoning lumber that he had salvaged from a dead pecan tree months back. The work was worthwhile, and the resulting couple hundred board feet were stacked out of the weather, continuing to season into very nice furniture grade material. He’d even set aside a dozen stock blanks for the ranch’s gunroom.

  By reflex, he turned to scan his surroundings, taking in the fruits of the last five years of his labor. The existing prefab structures had already been connected to the county grid, but had been improved and expanded by contractors selected for discretion. His group of fellow investors had also paid to update the leach field and installed a large propane fuel system. Likewise the small wind turbine mounted on an adjustable mast. The seasonal truck garden surrounded by an eight-foot deer fence didn’t make the ranch self-sufficient, but it helped. They even had a decent four-lane range good out to three hundred meters. In theory, the families that had formed the limited liability real estate investment firm and acquired the previously run-down property in the ranch were each supposed to take their turn in residence. In practice, the Robbins family had stayed for nearly five years so far, homeschooling their four kids and systematically renovating the estate, one project at a time. Most of the investors summered at the ranch, which had enough room for all the grownups, and in good weather, plenty of tent space for the kids. Some investors had never lived “in” at all, but contributed in other ways.

  They’d all been carefully selected after much mutual evaluation. The group ran heavily to retired members of the U.S. Special Operations Command Association and its auxiliaries.

  Rob snorted as he thought about the Aussie specops troop turned banker that was their silent partner. Smith had always been unlikely to leave New York City and the ready supply of feminine company that it had represented. He’d certainly helped with the financing though. They hadn’t heard from Smith or any of their City connections in over ten weeks. The last of their association arrived at the refuge two months prior, leaving a third of the group unaccounted for.

  Rob appreciated the presence of his teammates and their families; there was greater safety in numbers. Pre-Plague, solo prepping had been all the rage and much money had changed hands for this gadget or that bit of apocalyptic kit. The truth was that mutually supporting communities and mastering the fundamentals of shelter, water and security were far more important than any high-speed, low-drag gear. Of course, if you had mastered the basic, special purpose kit could make a difference.

  He grinned. His group had more than mastered the basics.

  The group had selected western Virginia for a variety of reasons, though compromises had been made.

  There was no point in buying in the Midwest when the majority had day jobs on or near the Boston–New York–D.C. axis, for example. Not to mention that the Feds controlled water rights on everything west of the Mississippi.

  The vets had pooled their interest and their resources. Rob had learned that the only thing that preppers liked as much as prepping was arguing about prepping. After debating an apparently infinite number of variables such as growing season duration, proximity to a trauma facility and the potential for future development and others ad nauseam, they’d finally pulled the trigger on a large plot of land.

  The investors had deliberately picked a spot that was not too close to the interstate and then groomed the access road so that all-wheel drive was required to navigate some carefully tailored obstacles. The difficult and extended driveway dissuaded lookie-loos and represented just one layer of a passive defense that shielded their get-away from prying eyes. The location was in a triangle between two small rivers. In the event that social conditions deteriorated so badly that the rule of law was no longer respected, bridges across each waterway could be dropped, preventing most access by vehicles. There was also a ford that could be used in an emergency, and was known only to the locals. No one was going to find this place without a map.

  Rob wasn’t particularly antisocial, but he would’ve been lying, pre-Plague, if he told anyone that he wasn’t a little paranoid about things.

  And look at that—all of sudden who was looking like a prescient genius?

  Ha!

  Having a place that didn’t rely solely on the grid generated some peace of mind. He inhaled deeply again and glanced at the sky. The clouds were lined up in endless gray-white ranks. Time to get moving again; there were plenty of chores to get done and a trip into town to complete before dark.

  He heard a low growling coming from the woodline, not even thirty meters away. As quickly as a stooping raptor, he pivoted his head and drew his ever-present side-arm. The infected that emerged from the shadows was a large male. This one appeared to have been feeding well. The dirty skin was mostly free of open sores and there were no obvious wounds. As it neared, the infected accelerated from a quick walk into a jog.

  Rob had already lined up the Glock. The big Gemtech can still allowed use of iron sights, but in the last year Rob had invested in a very expensive prototype holo sight, a concession to his middle-aged eyes. As the infected reached a full sprint, the tall former CAG operator completed the trigger stroke and the infected dove into the dirt a few feet short of its intended meal.

  Rob kept the gun on the unmoving zombie as he scanned the treeline for any additional threats. His kill had been alone; the steep approaches to the ranch dissuaded most infected from wandering upwards when easier meals could be had for less effort.

  “Maybe they’ve eaten out the lowlands?” Rob muttered. “Sucks to be them.”

  * * *

  In an effort to stave off boredom and forestall arguments, Tom had been rotating passengers among the three vehicles. Today he was again driving the lead Suburban, but this time he was the lone male in the big SUV. Risky was riding shotgun, one hand maintaining control of the AR casually lying between her legs, muzzle down on the floor pan. Astroga was tutoring two of the ’tweens, Jonsdottir and Blaine, in the dark arts of the E-4 Mafia. Bloom and Bua filled the crowded third-row seat of the SUV, alternately arguing or pointedly ignoring one another. All of this was set to a succession of late nineties pop music.

  Tom was irritated, and neither the so-called music nor the bickering were helping. Rounding the next turn, he jumped on the brakes, biting back a curse. The passengers didn’t refrain.

  “What the hell, Smith!” Bua yelled from the back seat. “How about warning us before you do that!”

  He sighed inaudibly. She still hadn’t forgiven him for leaving her restrained during her break with reality in the SAFE.

  “Should be wearing your seatbelt, dummy,” Astroga said, tugging on the strap that had locked her in place during the sudden stop. “SOP is briefed every morning.”

  “Oh, you think you’re pretty smart don’t you, you little fascist runt…”

  Tom ignored the incipient fight behind him, and scanned the road.

&nbs
p; For every five miles of westward progress made, he’d been compelled to backtrack as much as three times that distance, threading the convoy through wrecks, abandoned roadblocks and on one occasion, as they crossed a tributary of the Tennessee, several hundred infected.

  This time, he’d stopped just short of another impassable clot of cars. The jumbled wrecks, some blackened with fire damage, blocked not only the two-lane state road but also the drainage ditches and fields extending to either side. Tom checked both sides of the state highway. Even the big-wheeled trucks and 4x4 jeeps that had ventured off the hardpan were sunk in soft mud up to their floor pans. A few decomposing bodies added their redolence to the grim scene.

  He plucked the handheld radio from the cup holder.

  “Turn it around, Kap, Gravy,” he said into the handheld radio. “We’ll try the last fork to the north and give it another go.”

  The radio emitted short bursts of static as the other drivers broke squelch to acknowledge the order.

  Inside the car, Risky had turned around to adjudicate the growing argument. Astroga was still taunting Bua while Bloome held her seat mate by the waist, preventing her from climbing over the seat-back in front of her.

  No one was paying the least bit of attention to security, the one critical thing that he asked of his car-mates.

  “Enough!” Tom yelled, his booming voice cutting through the growing din. “That’s it! I can’t threaten to stop the car, because we got somewhere to be.”

  He punched the stereo button with one thick finger, and the pop singer’s endless request “to call her, maybe” was cut mercifully short.

  “But the music goes off, and stays off until you all grow up, do your job and”—he squinted at Astroga—“stop instigating fights.”

  There was a brief silence. Jonsdottir scooted all the way against the door and Bloome tugged Bua back onto the bench seat. No one met Tom’s look. Well, almost no one.

  “Me, sir?” replied Astroga, wide-eyed. “I was just sitting here—”