River of Night

by John Ringo

  “You close the gate behind you?” asked Robbins as he walked up to Tom.

  “We aren’t barbarians, Two-Ton,” Tom said reassuringly, before taking Robby’s hand and embracing quickly. One good thump on the back and the men broke back apart, beaming. “We even covered up our tracks from the main road so no one will spot recent activity.”

  “I guess you SAS pretty boys are all right after all,” Robbins replied before putting two fingers in his mouth and whistling impossibly loud before waving his left hand in a circle over his head. “Bring it in!”

  Twenty meters away from one side of the track, four shapes stood up. Clad in shaggy overgarments the same color as the earth, their outlines were further blurred with layers of vegetation and burlap. They collected some burdens whose familiar shape jogged Tom’s memory, before picking their way over to the group that was eagerly piling out of the two Suburbans.

  “Where did you get those museum pieces?” Tom asked, indicating the large machine guns dating to the Second World War. A particularly broad-shouldered young man carried his burden easily over his shoulder, one hand negligently balancing the barrel. A smaller figure next to him unceremoniously dumped two green ammunition cans on the ground and then swept its head gear off, revealing a raven-haired, fresh-faced teenage girl. As she scanned the newcomers with an intelligent look, a second, similarly encumbered pair walked up behind the first.

  “Meet my oldest, Jordan,” said the proud father. “Wants to be an electrical engineer. The tall oaf is my son Jake—call him Junior—and that is his ‘leetle fren.’”

  “Is that a replica Browning?” asked Kaplan.

  “Replica?” replied Robbins Senior. “Bite your tongue! I picked up some M1919 parts kits from that crazy guy in southern Indiana that you turned me onto a few years back. A little welding, a little machining and we have a proper light machine gun without all the bothersome paperwork. I even chambered ’em in seven six two by fifty-one.”

  “I wouldn’t call a thirty cal light, but…” Tom said jokingly. He knew from personal experience that the weapon was very heavy, but if the weight bothered Junior, it wasn’t obvious. A hard-hitting weapon, the Browning was still in use in many developing nations where their SAS had conducted training.

  Tom paused, reflecting that he now aspired to live in a developing nation.

  “Well, hellooo, Mr. Fancy Pants!” the second gunner said, striding up. “Where are those sexy five-thousand-dollar suits that I heard you bankers were wearing?”

  “’Lo, Half Ass,” Tom replied, looking down ruefully at his stained plate carrier, but then extended a hand to the new man. “Good to see you! Are Sarah and kids with you?”

  “Yep,” said Dave Pascoe. “We’ve got parts of five families here, but a few never made it.”

  Pascoe was considerably shorter than the others, but nearly as broad as he was tall. If the bulk of the machine gun that he cradled was an effort, there was no sign of it on his cheerful face.

  “Whoa, boys,” interjected Robbins. “Let’s debrief somewhere besides the main road. Dave, Junior, get the guns back to the ready service locker. I’ll…”

  A brief swirl in the debarking passengers caught the attention of the reunited comrades.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Dina said, pushing her way up to the main group, addressing Tom personally. She looked at the heavily armed reception crew and blanched. “Wait, machine guns? Is that even legal?!”

  “One of yours, Thunder?” Robbins said, regarding her in alarm.

  “It’s a long story,” Tom sighed. “Astroga! Come take care of this.”

  “Oh, I am so going to tase you now!” the short Army specialist said, stumping forward. “I told you to wait with us back here, and I turn my back for one…Hey hey, nice belt-fed! Not as big as mine, but you know…” She regarded the first machine gun team with a bright smile.

  “What?” stammered Junior.

  “I’ve gotta take care of this person for a sec…” she added as she grabbed Bua by the elbow, ignoring a squawk of protest. “Maybe later you can let me shoot that? Say, do you have any hot showers?”

  “If my dad says so,” replied Junior in a doubtful tone. “And, duh.”

  “Oooh, you’re my new best friend!” Astroga said over her shoulder as she towed Bua back to the truck.

  “Right. Everyone move up to the main house,” Junior’s father said. “First stop is the barn for clean-up. We’ll get some coffee and snacks going in a second and you…” he indicated Tom “…can brief me. Then I’ll show you around, give you a feel for the place.”

  “’Preciate it, Rob,” Tom replied, rubbing a hand across his face. “Really. Everyone’s farking stuffed just now. We could all use a shower and a lie down.”

  “You’re all tired and you could use some sleep, check,” Robbins answered, clapping one hand on his friend’s shoulder. “That we can do.”

  “After the debrief, Robbie. I’ve got to fill you in.”

  * * *

  The Gleaner vehicles covered nearly eighty miles in the two hours of driving.

  “How do you keep the roads so clear?” Jason said while looking out the windows of the diesel six pack Ford. He hadn’t been in a powered vehicle in months. “The easy going makes a huge difference.”

  “Our Mr. Green is a student of history,” Eva O’Shannesy replied from the front passenger seat. “He understands that clear roads give us a big advantage. It can take us weeks to clear a road outwards, but once we have it cleaned up, we can return almost as fast as you could in the old days—you know, before zombies. Anyway, we use labor gangs from the survivors that we pick up. We try to save the families intact if we can. Doesn’t always happen.”

  “Why not? Who wouldn’t want to be rescued?”

  “Well, that’s a good question.” O’Shannesy said, flashing him a grin over her shoulder. “See, we don’t exactly give them the option. If the adults fight, we kill them. Most of the healthy orphans under twelve or so go to the farm. Moderate labor and so on, but their real purpose is to give the women something to do, someone to care for. The dear children are easy to like and so the women who bond with them are less likely to run or make trouble. In a few years, the best of them will grow up as Gleaners.”

  “That’s…” Jason said before pausing to consider the least negative thing that he could say. “…efficient.”

  “You can say the rest,” O’Shannesy replied while keeping her eyes to the front this time. “It’s brutal. It’s logical. It advances our plan. And really, I’ve got to give Green props—he understands human nature very well. But, anyhow—the men we rescue have options. If they’re family men, then they’re highly motivated to get with the program. Their families might even be allowed to stay intact. Their kids get protection and light work. The teens perform harder labor, but nothing brutal. Their women don’t work in the Rec Hall.”

  “Rec Hall?” asked Jason. “What’s that?”

  “Short for recreation hall,” she said, pointing out a turn to the driver, then continued. “Use your imagination. Single men on higher risk duty, or any of the Guard, have access to the recreation hall.”

  The vehicle leaned into the turn and then pulled over to allow the next six vehicles past. As the converted wrecker with a five-hundred-gallon diesel tank on the bed rumbled by they joined the end of the procession.

  “We rotate the lead car duty,” O’Shannesy commented in answer to Jason’s raised eyebrow. “Sometimes the locals leave presents for us, caltrops mostly, after we pass through. Too much land to comprehensively sweep. This way the lead vehicle crew is more likely to be fresh and paying attention, plus we each have an equal shot at getting wrecked. Lost a few trucks that way.”

  “So Mr. Green meets with resistance,” the ex-cop said. “How does he deal with it?”

  “This area is clear,” the Gleaner officer said as she tried to unfold a map. “Has been for a fair bit. Back in the day though, he would find kids that lived in the immediate area
and strap them to the hood of the lead car. Any wreck and pow, they catch it first. Cut back on incidents and random sniping by a factor of four.”

  “Huh,” Jason replied. “That’s…”

  “Efficient.” O’Shannesy said laconically. “Yeah, we covered that already.”

  * * *

  Tom blearily sipped his coffee as his old friend finished talking.

  “We’re pretty well set here, as you can see,” Robbins said, finishing the short version of the ranch orientation brief and was understandably proud of their achievements. “Even with your extra dozen or so, we can maintain here through the winter. The infected have never crossed the fenceline and we don’t give them any reasons to be curious about what lies uphill. Once winter is over, and we’re past the frost line, I figure the number of zombies will be dramatically lower.”

  He folded his arms across his chest while the newcomers sipped hot coffee, stretching their legs out from the simple picnic style bench tables that lined one wall of a surprising large barn.

  “Maybe,” replied Tom. “Maybe not. We can guess about the resilience of infected, but we don’t really know. We’re still trying to get a feel for behaviors. However, we weren’t planning on here staying very long. Now I don’t know if you should stay either.”

  “What possible reason could there be to leave here, now?” Robbins said, puzzled. “Great sightlines, decent sensors, plenty of supplies, safe haven from the infected through the winter?”

  “I was planning on pushing through to the refuge that Bank of the Americas built before the Fall,” Tom said by way of explanation. “Site Blue. But we got hit on the way here. Lost two people. Lost some gear. Lost the maps that mark our route and plans.”

  “You marked our ranch on a map and then…lost it,” Robbins said, his voice gaining volume as he spoke each word. “Tell me you are making this shit up, Smith.”

  “Was not his fault,” Risky said, stepping up next to Tom. “The first group of people we see in months are chasing little girl. Want to take her. We rescue, then they fight. We shoot and run, but Durante died. Another one too.”

  “Gravy Durante bought it?” exclaimed Pascoe. “Oh man, he was one hard snake. How’d he go?”

  “Meeting engagement,” Tom said, shrugging. He tried for a matter-of-fact tone, but his voice caught as he explained further. “Tried for a parley, but it dropped in the dunny. Gravy caught a round under his armor on the exfil, wrecked his ride. Couldn’t get him out, his leg was wound into the wreckage. Left him to delay pursuit while we ran. His choice.”

  “Correlation of force?” Robbins demanded.

  “Adverse,” Tom replied. “And our training level was poor. Is poor. No unit articulation.”

  “Ground?” Pascoe said, speaking up.

  “Channeled terrain,” Tom said flatly. “One way out, one way in. They had mixed small arms, heavy on shotties. OPFOR was four, maybe five times our strength. And now we’ve got to assume that whoever they’re working for has the information on the map. All of it. Even the important stuff.”

  “That was pretty, uh,” Pascoe said, searching for a diplomatic phrase. “Uh—”

  “Fucking careless, is what!” Robbins shouted, his face reddening. “What else could they have gotten that is as important as this place? Our families are here!”

  “They might or might not have the location of this place, but they definitely have the location of the bank refuge,” Tom said as he ticked off the details. “They have the some details on the inventory that I expect to find there. They know that I was thinking long term about restoring a source of power generation somewhere in the Tennessee Valley. They got the location of a couple possible military supply points for the National Guard. I think that is enough, don’t you?”

  “The guy I shot didn’t seem all that bright, Boss,” Kaplan said. “I can’t see someone like him developing useful intel from our rubbish.”

  “Thanks for that, Kap,” Tom said. “It isn’t the meathead we shot, it’s his boss that I’m thinking of. Rob is right.”

  “You’re fucked,” Robbins said, standing up. “And now you have probably fucked us.”

  “I know,” Tom replied. He considered attempting a sincerely apology but he was just too tired. He settled for trying to hide the exhaustion in his voice. “But we have a few advantages. I didn’t write everything down.”

  Debbie Robbins was a professional homemaker, presiding over a household of four active kids, two of them grown to adult size. Peacemaking was her middle name.

  “He’s practically dead on his feet, Rob,” she said, laying a cool hand on her husband’s arm. “Everyone needs some rest. We can hear him out tonight, dear heart,” Debbie said, scanning the new group, stopping at Tom. Her eyes grew stony. “And if he doesn’t have some good answers, then you can shoot him.”

  CHAPTER 10

  It was nightfall, and the combined parties, including Tom’s group and Robbins’s extended clan, had closed the doors to the big barn, which was the only place large enough to accommodate everyone not on security watch. Preventing a light leak was important at night and Tom was pleased to note the discipline exercised by his former mates. Tempers as well as the temperature had subsided considerably by the time that Tom finished outlining his plan.

  The assembled clans and the bank survivors had watched the principals bat the ideas back and forth for an hour. The audience’s collective head swung back and forth as though they were watching center court at Wimbledon.

  “So let me see if I got this right,” Robbins said, still skeptical. “After we sort out teams, step one is to evacuate this ranch while you link up with your banker buddies at their ritzy refuge. That site is at least three, maybe five days away and you haven’t had any contact with them in almost four months. Meanwhile, we drag our collective asses through the zombie-infested Cumberland Valley for up to another week and find a spot to cross the Tennessee and secure a hydroelectric power plant. Which may or may not be working. And we do this while potentially being chased by a larger force of unknown origin and unknown capabilities. And all because you think that they know where this place”—he smacked the tabletop with a palm—“is located. Because you lost a map.”

  “Enough with the crook!” Tom said angrily. “You’ve only mentioned the map what, eight times? No matter how sorry I am, I can’t rewind the crash, Robbie! And if I could, I’d fooking well save Gravy first, wouldn’t I!”

  “All right, all right, everyone take a breath,” Debbie ordered. She looked back at her husband and when he remained quiet, she gave Tom a little “come on” gesture.

  He inhaled once, in-out, keeping his hands palm down on the table before continuing.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Tom explained again. “Our bank plan was to hunker down and wait for someone else to fix stuff. The bank fallback points aren’t really redoubts—they are interim way stations for some key people and data. You can’t restart a civilization without a bank.”

  “Umm, I’m pretty sure that you can,” Robbins said.

  “Actually, no, you can’t,” Tom said insistently. “At least not any civilization that you want to live in. Call it a bank, call it an agricultural cooperative, call it an infrastructure restoration agency—someone has to manage the money. Literally. What do we use for currency? How do you arrange a loan? Who establishes and enforces exchange rates? Do you have any idea how big the infrastructure projects to get this country running again are going to be? Trust me, you are going to need an economic system which doesn’t rely on trading wheat for iron for sugar and so on. It took hundreds of years to get from feudalism and chattel slavery to something like a modern economic system. Do you want to wait that long? Do you want your kids growing up in that?”

  “Tommy, we’re just parts of five families, with kids,” Robbins replied, before pulling a familiar disc-shaped green can out of his pocket. He delivered several brisk taps to the lid, tamping down the dip tobacco. “We aren’t Delta, we aren’
t FEMA and we aren’t the freaking Justice League. We aren’t going to be able to restart civilization. Somewhere else, someone else with the right people and gear is already on it.”

  “You didn’t see New York burn,” Tom said. He didn’t have the tobacco ritual to relax himself, so he strained to sound reasonable. “You haven’t driven a few hundred miles, which by the way is about the minimum distance to start getting used to decaying corpses everywhere, looking at the wreckage of the country. It looks like pictures of Rwanda in ’94, but with Americans, Robbie. The radio spectrum is dark, the sky is empty and there is no civil authority anywhere. Whenever I haven’t been cursing whoever started this shit show I’ve been trying to bully around or over all the opposition in order to live up to my promises. I am going to redeem my word one way or the other. Long term, that means restarting everything.”

  Robbins just sighed eloquently.

  “Robby, we need a hydro plant because any credible plan to jumpstart our bit of civilization requires large scale power,” Tom said, rehashing the main points of his strategy for what felt like the tenth time. “The only plant that we can ‘fuel’ is a hydro plant, of which there are several in the Tennessee Valley. I’ve got to get to Site Blue in order to warn them and ultimately prep it for a move, too. I’m nervous about leaving you here because of the map. Yes, that we left in a wreck. And yes, that was my fault. Doesn’t change what we have to do now, though.”

  Robbins sat and glowered at his own map, which was spread across the table. His skepticism didn’t require words. The distances on the map, the risk to their families, the unknowns—those had all been discussed in detail. He squinted over at his old teammate.

  “I didn’t say that there aren’t details to work out,” Tom said, moving papers away so that only the empty brown tabletop stretched between himself and Robbins. “But, the alternative is to wait here until we are invested by a superior force, and then get into a gun fight on someone else’s terms while your family is supplying some of the foot soldiers. Even if those particular bad guys never show, how many years do you want to wait before you believe that there might not be anyone else coming?”