by Thomas Locke
“I’ve never heard that before.”
She shrugged. “Books.”
“So what happened?” Pablo demanded.
“The only way it was contained was by sealing off the infected areas.” Kevin shook his head, glad he had not been around to endure that duty. “All of Florida south of Jacksonville. The region around what once was a city called Orleans . . .”
“New Orleans,” Carla said.
Kevin suspected she knew far more than he did but had not spoken of it because of how troubling it would be to her group, as long as they had nowhere else to go. Now they all looked to Kevin with hope for a new tomorrow. He shuddered at the responsibility cast upon him and went on, “All of Alabama and a lot of the border regions with Mexico. They’re still classed as no-man’s-lands. Everything else I know is basically rumors.”
“Tell me what you’ve heard,” Pablo said.
“The boundary fences aren’t patrolled any longer. They haven’t been in a generation. We used to meet with deputies from Atlanta and Jacksonville. They call those places dead zones, but only because nobody is coming out.”
“So that’s where these refugees are headed?” Pablo looked horrified. “A dead zone?”
Kevin nodded. “Maybe it’s safe now.”
“At least from township militias,” Carla said.
They trekked in silence for another mile. As the sun rose, other families emerged from roadside camps. Finally Kevin found what he was looking for, a humpbacked ridge that slowly rose to dominate the left-hand side of the highway. “If we’re doing what I suggested, this is where we need to turn off.”
Pablo had not spoken since learning the refugees’ destination. His voice grated with anger as he said, “Nothing’s changed. The weakest of our group can’t walk much farther, and we leave no one behind.”
Carla set a hand upon her fiancé’s shoulder. “Kevin’s plan is a good one.”
Either her touch or her tone eased him somewhat. Even so, Pablo replied, “I didn’t rescue my team to take them to anywhere called a dead zone.”
Kevin found himself liking this pair more with every word they spoke. “I couldn’t agree more.”
He had not been up here since his early days as a trainee. But those events had left an indelible mark. At his signal, they gathered in one of the clearings that had been vacated. No one traveling the road gave them so much as a glance. Gradually they shifted back, farther and farther, until the surrounding pines offered them a shadowed veil. When the road emptied momentarily, Kevin signaled and they moved into the trees.
They trekked through the woods in silence. At least, no one talked. But they made all the noise Kevin expected from twenty untrained people hiking through woodlands. There was no trail, but this was an old-growth forest, mostly hickory and pine and massive oak. Here and there a dogwood extended its white-blossom branches like a beaming welcome to these strangers. The ground was springy-soft with needles and last year’s leaves.
The slope was gradual at first. He noticed a subtle change of position, requiring the walkers to lean into the incline, which remained hard to gauge while dodging trees. It became steeper, then slippery as well, until most were puffing hard and groaning. Then ahead of them Kevin spied blue sky through gently waving branches. He turned and signaled them to halt. Most collapsed gratefully to the earth.
Kevin had not taken aim at any specific point. Anywhere along the five-mile ridgeline would do for what he had in mind. He and Pablo left their packs beside Carla and crawled up the final rise.
When they arrived at the top, Pablo surveyed the expanse below them and quietly declared, “It is just as you described.”
“You doubted me?”
“Only a little.” Behind and below them, the group talked softly and shifted to more comfortable positions. Pablo asked, “Is it okay for them to eat?”
“Yes, but no fire. Tell them to keep their voices soft, and no one can show themselves over the ledge.”
Pablo passed word, then returned with a handful of nuts and berries. When Kevin shook his head at the offer, he asked, “You’re not hungry?”
He was, but the climb had caused his leg to throb worse than ever. “Not just yet.”
Behind them, the group clustered and passed canteens and sacks of food. Kevin saw no need to order them to strict silence. Their target was a road at the base of the hill, over a hundred meters from where he crouched. He kept his own head below the tall weeds, rising for an occasional glimpse in both directions. The target area was completely empty.
Pablo returned to crouch beside him. “What now?”
Kevin settled back and rubbed his leg above the wound. The pain reached all the way to his knee now. He could only hope the doctor had been correct and there was no risk of infection. He glanced over the edge. The ground below them remained silent, empty.
He replied, “Now we wait.”
After a time, Carla climbed the rise to join them. With her was Forrest, the best of their so-called trackers. She offered them a canteen of sweet tea, which helped settle Kevin’s turbulent gut. He refused part of a steak sandwich but managed some of the dried fruit.
Carla asked, “How long must we wait?”
“Hard to say. I haven’t been here in quite a while.” Kevin pointed north. “A few miles up is the main militia barracks and training center at Fort Mills. Any detail patrolling the Greenville region has to pass us here.”
She accepted the news by turning and looking back over the tree line to the unseen highway. “So many displaced,” she murmured.
Kevin asked, “Do you know why the hunt for adepts went into high gear?”
“Rumors only.” Pablo kept his gaze on the empty road below. “The Washington bureaucrats sent to control the roadblock and internment camp . . .”
He went quiet because a woman in her thirties crept up the hill until she was close enough to offer Kevin a flirtatious grin. “My, but you’re a big boy. Pablo, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Kevin, this is Doris. Doris, we’re talking.”
She sniffed at his attempt to dismiss her and said to Kevin, “I saw you limping, hon. What happened?”
Kevin disliked admitting to any weakness, especially now. But his injury was real, and they needed to know. “Bear trap.”
“Oh, excellent. Not that you were hurt. But I might be able to help.”
Pablo protested, “We can’t have Kevin collapsing on us.”
“Pablo, stop,” Carla said.
Doris asked, “How long ago did you get hurt?”
“Five days,” Kevin said.
“Better and better. Show me.”
By the time Kevin had rolled up his trouser leg and unwrapped the bandage, a number of the others had shifted position so they could watch.
Doris had surprisingly strong hands. She prodded, then shut her eyes, clenched her face up tight, and probed deeper.
“Ouch.”
“Shush now.” She opened her eyes and looked at Carla. “You’ll have someone carry me?”
“Of course.”
“And my pack. I don’t want to lose the pictures of my nieces.” To Kevin she said, “I’m told this hurts rather a lot.”
Kevin arched his back and took a two-fisted grip on the earth as his wound began to burn.
Twenty minutes later, they were still waiting. Not that Kevin minded the delay. His leg throbbed fiercely. Yet there was a clear difference to what he had felt before Doris’s treatment, and this made the pain bearable.
He remained sprawled on the hill’s crest where Doris had worked on his wound. He glanced down the ridge, back to where she lay in the shade of a massive oak, snoring gently.
Pablo had resumed his place beside Kevin and asked, “Can you walk?”
“I think so. We’ll know soon enough.”
“Some of those Doris works on moan for days.”
“I believe it.” Kevin drank from his canteen. And resumed watching the empty road.
W
hen the conflict with Atlanta had started to heat up, the militia’s main headquarters and officers’ residences were moved to the city’s southern boundary, a village once known as Pineville. They were soon joined by a number of businesses and merchants who relied on the militia for their trade. A market grew along the former main street, elegant enough to draw Charlotte’s wealthy. Pineville and the main barracks in Fort Mills were connected to the southern highway by the road that Kevin scouted.
The watcher sprawled on Pablo’s other side hissed quietly. Forrest was a portly man in his late thirties, prematurely bald, and clearly unaccustomed to any kind of exercise. He said, “Vehicles coming our way.”
Pablo asked, “How many?”
“Three trucks. And a car.” A pause, then, “And a lot of guns.”
Pablo said, “A military convoy.”
Kevin asked, “You can tell if they’re armed?”
Forrest nodded. His head was cocked to one side as though he listened to unseen winds. “They’re coming fast.”
Ten silent minutes passed. Finally Kevin heard a faint rumbling to the north. He risked another glance, then said, “I see them.”
There were four vehicles in the convoy, a boxy lead car followed by three large trucks. Because of the good weather, the canvas tops were pulled back to show rear holds filled with uniformed militia. The central hold of each truck was piled with gear and supplies and weapons.
“Sixty militia plus officers,” Pablo muttered. “Where are they headed?”
Kevin was stumped. Most of the disputed territory south of them was now firmly under the control of Atlanta. Their militia force had to number twice those of Charlotte, perhaps even three times. There was no logic to such a convoy. Patrolling with this large a force was an invitation to war.
He forced his attention back to the matter at hand. He looked at the two newcomers stationed beside Forrest. Barry was a fresh-faced man in his late teens whose pale features were covered by freckles. Beside him knelt Tula, a slender, dark-skinned woman in her midtwenties, lovely in the manner of a bruised rose.
Kevin asked, “Can you take out just the middle truck?”
In reply, Barry shut his eyes. His features tightened in concentration.
A moment later, shouts rose from down below as the center truck ground to a halt.
The rear truck started blowing its horn. The lead truck stopped and gave its horn a long hoot. Finally the car halted and reversed back. All the doors opened.
“That’s Hollis,” Kevin said.
If their survival had not hung in the balance, Kevin would have found Hollis’s response comic. The militia captain stomped about the road, shouting at the three men who were now huddled under the truck’s raised hood. Troops sprawled along the road’s verge or leaned against the trucks, smoking and talking softly. A card game started. Hollis continued to strut and shout.
“Perfect,” Kevin said. Barry and Tula grinned in response.
His first alert at wrongness was when Pablo hissed, “It’s them.”
His words and his tense expression were enough to send Forrest and Tula scooting down the ridge. Barry flattened to the earth as Pablo slipped back and called softly to his group, “Three Watchers. Everybody quiet. For your lives.”
The trio emerging from the lead vehicle wore black suits, black shirts buttoned to their necks, black sunglasses. They carried identical cases by straps hanging from their left shoulders. Kevin lowered his head down to where the high grass served as a veil. Behind him was the stillness of terror. The only sound came from a cardinal high in a neighboring treetop. Kevin kept observing because he was not a special or adept or whatever they wanted to call themselves. And he needed to understand.
Hollis walked over to where the trio stood. The captain’s words did not carry, but the message was clear enough. He jammed his finger down the southern road, then pointed at the sky. Whatever these bureaucrats intended, they and the truck were putting Hollis off schedule.
The dark-suited trio might as well have been deaf, for all the notice they gave the militia captain. One of them turned to the others and spoke. Only then did Kevin realize it was a woman. She was almost as tall as the two men and dressed identically. But as she turned her head Kevin saw the cut of her hair, the soft jawline, her full lips. All Hollis saw was her utter lack of interest in him or his schedule. He barked something and stomped away.
The trio opened their leather pouches and pulled out identical headsets. The apparatuses were made of some shiny material and fit tightly over their hair. The three settled grey spectacles down over their eyes. A stubby tube protruded from the center of their foreheads. At a word from the woman, they touched a spot above their right temple, then began sweeping the surrounding forests and hills.
Kevin crept down beside Pablo. And held his breath.
26
According to the driver who took Caleb south, Atlanta’s Ritz Hotel was a genuine palace with prices to match.
The driver talked constantly through the first hour of their journey south. Caleb had never met anyone like this man. He lied with every breath. Caleb’s truth sense had kicked in almost the same moment he had shut his door, even before the driver started the engine. Which was interesting, given how the price had been set in advance and then written down at Hester’s insistence. Half was paid before they set out. Even so, the portly man behind the wheel continued to breathe in, lie, breathe in, lie. Even his jolly mood was false.
Finally Caleb leaned forward so as to speak to Hester in the front passenger seat. “Stay on guard.”
Hester’s face tightened into a series of hard edges. “You got something?”
“I think . . . Yes.”
That was enough for Hester. She turned to the driver and ordered, “Stop the car.”
“That’s difficult here, little lady.” The man shot her a big grin. “Up ahead we’ve got the sweetest little spot, you’ll think you’ve died and gone—”
“Zeke.”
The knife flashed gold in the afternoon light. Zeke slipped forward and pressed it to the driver’s neck. “Do what the lady says.”
“Th-the car is registered and the militia are my very best friends—”
“We’re not stealing anything,” Caleb said. When the car pulled into the weeds and stopped, he said, “Open the trunk.”
Hester was already moving. “Stay on him, Zeke.”
Caleb walked around back and waited as she opened the hard case they had purchased to hold their guns. She handed him both a rifle and a pistol and took the same for herself. They checked the loads, then Caleb carried a second pair back for Zeke.
The driver sweated profusely at the sight of the guns. “That’s highly illegal.”
“So is highway robbery,” Hester said. She cocked her rifle noisily, then settled the barrel on the armrest between her and the driver. “Tell me I have your full attention.”
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
She reached into her pocket and flashed her badge. The sight of the guard’s shield caused the driver to wince. “If you stop for any reason between now and the hotel, you die. If you slow for a roadblock, you die. If you have a flat tire, tell me what happens.”
“I-I die.”
“Zeke, Caleb, roll down your windows and show the world your weapons.” She leaned back. “Let’s go.”
Twice during the remainder of their journey, the driver sounded his horn and flashed his lights. When Hester demanded to know what he was doing, his only response was, “Keeping you folks safe.”
27
Kevin’s team remained frozen in place for well over an hour. Down below, the Charlotte militia relaxed along either side of the road. Work on the middle truck had ceased. Finally the three dark-suited visitors pulled off their helmets and clustered by the front vehicle. Hollis glared at them repeatedly but remained silent.
At a gesture from Kevin, Pablo crawled back up the ridge. He sighed with relief when he saw the trio had stopped their hunt. He softly ca
lled to the others, “We’re safe.”
Kevin thought the claim was premature but did not object, because the entire group relaxed. A few smiles even surfaced. He asked softly, “How do they track specials?”
“Adepts,” Pablo corrected without heat. He used his chin to point at the trio. “From what I’ve heard, those apparatuses allow them to detect two elements that are said to be different about us. First, our temperature is elevated by more than a degree. This heat signature is detected by the devices that cover their eyes. We are said to shine far more brilliantly than . . .”
“Normal people,” Kevin suggested.
Pablo shrugged. “What is normal in this day and age?”
“And the second element?”
“The central component detects brain-wave activity. Ours is different. Or so I am told. But again, this is all from rumors whispered at midnight by some very frightened people.”
“How did they find you and Carla?”
“They restrained me, not her. We were entering Charlotte’s main food market. The militia had the checkpoint, same as usual, searching everybody. One moment Carla and I stood waiting to be inspected, me carrying her basket, the next I was plucked from the line and stuffed inside a truck, my ankle chained to the running board.”
Kevin tried to make sense of it. “Charlotte probably worked out some way to check body temperature without Washington’s help.”
“There was a metal detector,” Pablo recalled. “There always is.”
Kevin mulled that over as he watched Hollis bark orders down below. A group of six soldiers, two from each truck, pulled rations from the back of the vehicles and passed them around. He realized he was hungry and that his leg did not hurt as much as before. “So Carla wasn’t taken.”
“No. She remained free.”
Kevin decided that issue could wait. “What happened after that?”
“We were housed in a compound.” Pablo’s features resumed their pinched look. “One by one we were taken out. Eight never came back. Then you and Carla arrived.”
Kevin’s next question was halted by Forrest, who crawled partway up the slope and whispered, “More trucks. Three of them.”