It was dark before Lee knew it.
He and Jack had hightailed it into the woods, leaving their attackers behind and themselves with a lot of unanswered questions. When they were deeper into the woods, Lee realized it was dark enough that he was straining to make his way through the woods. The two military men were keeping up a good clip in what Lee figured was a westerly direction. They weren’t being overly loud, but they weren’t exercising much noise discipline either. They were both still focused on putting as much distance as possible between them and the house.
Houses were fast becoming a big negative for Lee. It was the second time he’d had to escape out the back during a frontal assault. Modern houses were not very defensible locations. A decent rifle round, even one as small as a 5.56mm, could punch a hole clean through the average house, as Lee had seen so recently with the enemy SAW. As the group moved silently, Lee’s thoughts were overcrowded. His thoughts first went to the enemy force that had just attacked him. Well-equipped looters or ill-equipped reserve forces? There was an argument to be made for both. The way Lee saw it, there were three options: they were a jumpy reserve unit that got scared and started firing before they should have but were overall benign, they were a reserve unit that had gone completely rogue, or they were regular citizens who had raided an armory and made out with some goodies.
The other pressing issue was where the hell Angela and Abby had gotten to. If Angela viewed Lee and Jack as having less than her best interest in mind, she might have seen that as an opportunity to escape. He supposed Jack slapping her hadn’t helped if that was the case; however, she had seemed comfortable with Lee prior to that. And best interest or not, they were without any food or water and had no place to go.
“Hey,” someone whispered.
Lee stopped and looked at Jack. The Marine was standing stock-still, slightly hunched, rifle up, and scanning. Lee waited for a moment.
“What?” he whispered back.
Jack turned and looked at him. “I didn’t say anything.”
They both reacted the same, turning outward and going to their knees, scanning the dark woods for a threat.
Then a familiar voice said, “Guys, it’s me.”
Lee felt relieved. “Angela?”
“Yeah.” The blond woman stepped out from behind a large tree and waved. She was still holding the shotgun from Jack’s house. Abby peered cautiously around the tree, as though she thought her mother might be mistaken.
“Jesus Christ, woman,” Jack grumbled. Angela gave Jack a what’s-your-problem look.
Lee let his rifle rest on his sling and walked over to her. “You and Abby all right?”
The woman looked down at her daughter. “Yeah. We’re fine.”
Abby stepped out and presented her arm with a somber look on her face. “I got scratched, but I’m okay.”
“We ran through a briar patch,” Angela clarified.
Lee couldn’t help but smile at the girl. He knelt down and took her arm gently. “Let me see how bad it is.” He couldn’t really see the scratches in the dark, but he pretended to give them a solid looking-over. “Those are some pretty good scratches, Abby. You’re a pretty tough girl. But I think you’re gonna be okay. I think we’ll clean them up and they’ll be just fine.”
Abby nodded, still very serious about her wounds.
Jack bent down so that he was closer to Lee and spoke in a low voice. “We should go ahead and make camp.”
Lee looked at him like he was crazy. “Right here?”
Jack was already unslinging his rifle. “Yeah. Those boys won’t be tracking us in the dark. They know what’s up. And us moving around at night is a very, very bad idea.”
Lee just stared. He didn’t want to contradict the man, as he felt he was speaking from experience, but Lee did not want to stop. He wanted to get home to his bunker where he could batten down the hatches and sleep in relative safety. And he was worried about Sam and Tango. Sam would probably be scared shitless right now, thinking that Lee was dead. He’d told the kid he would be back in a few hours. Lee was way overdue.
Jack realized Lee wasn’t thrilled with the idea of stopping and knelt down. He motioned for Angela and Abby to join him. “I don’t know how much movin’ around you folks done, but I got here cross-country from Lejeune, tryin’ to link up with my dad. These people—the infected ones—they go nuts at night. They just run around in packs and I don’t know what it is, but they can hear as well as any animal. You move around at night, you’ll have those fuckers all over you in a heartbeat.” He looked at Lee. “Now, I can see you seem like a shit-hot hard charger, but I only got a few rounds left for my rifle and didn’t have time to grab none of my other gear. And I’ve seen these infected in groups as large as fifty. You ain’t takin’ ’em down all by yourself.”
Fifty… Lee thought.
That was much larger than Sam had seen. The eyewitness accounts of these groups seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. Was it the tale getting bigger, or were the infected herding together out of instinct, the separate groups absorbing into one another as they met, creating larger and larger hordes?
“I have this gun…” Angela offered.
“Ma’am, no offense, but you don’t know the first thing about that gun.”
Angela looked indignant. “I can pull the trigger.”
“What type of gun is it?” Jack smiled.
Angela looked at it. “A… rifle?”
“No. It’s a shotgun. How many rounds does it hold?”
“Ten.”
“Five. You know how fast you go through five rounds? You have extra ammunition I don’t know about? Do you even know how to reload it? Listen, sweetheart, I’m not tryin’ to be mean here, but this isn’t the time for politically correct women’s rights bullshit. I’ll be happy to show you how to use that weapon when I have time, but right now you need to admit that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
Angela glared at him. “I’m not trying to be a feminist Nazi. I’m just trying to help. And don’t call me sweetheart… asshole.”
Jack just grinned. Lee decided to settle the matter before it got more heated. “Fine. We camp here.”
“Can we make a fire?” Abby asked.
“No, sweetie.” Jack got down on his knees. “And we have to be real, real quiet, okay? We don’t want anyone to hear us.”
“Okay…” Abby’s voice was an exaggerated whisper.
Lee took off his backpack and opened it. He had enough water left to give everyone a bottle but they needed to make them last until tomorrow when they reached his bunker. He gave Angela and Abby the MREs he’d already opened for them earlier in the day. He’d only packed two MREs, so he gave Jack a PowerBar and took one for himself. Jack thanked him and offered to take first watch. They would switch at 0200 hours.
They all made quick work of their food, eating hungrily in silence. When they were finished, the girls huddled together against a tree, and Jack crept away with his rifle to find a good perch from which to watch the camp. Lee felt strange about having the man he barely knew watching over them while they slept, but options were limited.
From his pack he pulled out his poncho liner and offered it to Angela. She looked at the folded square, seeming unsure of what it was. “It’s a poncho liner,” he explained. “But it makes a pretty good blanket if you get cold during the night.”
She accepted it with a smile and spread it over herself and her daughter.
Lee settled back, using his go-to-hell pack as a pillow. He crossed his legs and hugged his M4 to his chest. This was his favored position for falling asleep in the field. He’d learned it after many nights in the shallow holes they called “Ranger graves.” It was the same position he might lie in if he were lying in a hammock, enjoying a warm summer evening, and perhaps that was what made it so comforting to him.
He was surprisingly tired and found himself drifting off after only a few moments. Just as he was about to fall asleep, a single thought made his stomach sink and kept him awake for a few more minutes. He thought that he might never again be able to sit in a hammock and enjoy a cold beer.
* * *
Lee woke up to realize something had just hit him in the face. He opened his eyes and saw that it was still dark. Whatever had hit him was small, possibly an acorn dropping from the tree they were under. He looked up at the forest canopy above him. The moon was very bright and cast the leaves of the trees with a silver lining. The night, though much cooler than the day, was still quite humid, and Lee felt his entire body was covered in a thin layer of sweat and his clothes were sticking to him.
He thought again about Sam and Tango. He was sure the kid was worried. He had witnessed his father murdered, and then the guy who had saved him runs off and doesn’t come back. Lee had no way of contacting him and letting him know they were okay—relatively—and on the way back. He could see the kid’s imagination getting the best of him. He just hoped Sam didn’t do anything stupid.
Off to his left he heard a soft breeze working its way through the forest. He closed his eyes again and waited for the breeze to flow over him and hopefully dry up some of his sweat.
Something hit him again.
This time, Lee could have sworn it was more forceful than just something dropping from a tree. He leaned up onto his elbows and looked around, just as another object bounced off his chest. Lee was about to stand up and ask what the fuck was going on, but then focused and saw Jack staring at him in the moonlight. The guy’s skeletal features looked creepy in the moonlight; his eyes were just sunken, glittering shadows and his cheekbones stood out like he was grinning at Lee.
What the hell was he doing?
Then Lee realized that Jack had a finger in front of his lips, signifying the need for silence. Lee also simultaneously realized that nothing in the forest was stirring from the breeze, and that the “breeze” was not a breeze at all but the sound of several people moving stealthily through the woods.
Lee clicked the safety off his M4 and pulled it snug into his shoulder. Then he slowly turned and looked at Angela and Abby. They were both still asleep, but he didn’t want them to wake up and make noise. Angela had scooted down and was lying more on her back than leaning against the tree now, and her foot was only inches from Lee’s. He sidled very carefully and quietly until his boot touched her shoe and gave it a good nudge.
She woke instantly and stared straight at him with wide eyes. She was about to open her mouth to speak when he brought his finger to his lips, then motioned with his eyes to where the sound of movement was coming from.
Both of them looked out into the darkness.
In the moonlight the shapes were hard to make out among all the trees, but Lee could see the movement, distinctly human and distinctly predatory. They were moving in a pack of seven or eight, maybe fifty yards from the camp and parallel to where Lee imagined the road was. None was armed, and Lee knew without thinking about it that these were not the people they’d gotten into a firefight with.
These were all infected.
His reaction to them was twofold. Physically he felt the adrenaline pumping hard through his veins. There was nothing he hated more than hiding and waiting. His mouth was dry, his tense muscles were beginning to quiver, and he felt like he was about to piss his pants. Mentally, he was detachedly surprised at how quietly they moved through the woods and how they obviously moved as one unit. It confirmed what Sam had told him about them banding together like dogs. In addition to that, their stealth could only mean one thing: They were hunting for prey. Lee wondered if this was something that would eventually go away as the FURY bacteria ate through its victims’ brains or whether the plague only did so much damage, turning people into ghouls and then leaving them that way.
Lee glanced over at Angela. Abby was still asleep in her arms, but the woman had her hand clamped over her own mouth and her eyes were squeezed shut as though she was trying not to scream or to cry. She opened her eyes momentarily and Lee watched tears spill out, leaving glistening streaks on her face. He didn’t know what he could do to comfort her. Speaking was out of the question. He put his hand out and motioned very slowly with a be-calm gesture.
He mouthed the words, It’s okay.
She closed her eyes again: if I can’t see them, they can’t see me. Childhood fears come to life, making you want to hide under the blanket and wish to wake up.
Lee looked back at Jack. The man was sitting against a fallen stump, just his head peeking over. He was looking out at the moving figures, his rifle tucked neatly into his shoulder but somewhat relaxed across his chest. Actually, Jack himself looked fairly relaxed. His face appeared unimpressed by what he was seeing.
Lee wondered about the man and his mental stability. He appreciated having another military man, especially one as cool-headed as Jack appeared to be. But the devil-may-care attitude made Lee concerned that he might be a little off his rocker. Or he might just have brass balls. Only time would tell.
It was several minutes before the pack of infected had passed by into the darkness and could no longer be heard. It was several minutes after that before anyone moved an inch. Finally, Jack looked back toward the group and arched his eyebrows, though he was still unwilling to speak. He got up very slowly and quietly and made his way over to Lee.
“Guess what?” he whispered.
Lee looked at him. “It’s 0200?”
Jack just grinned.
Lee rolled away from his warm spot on the ground and took a moment to work out a few kinks. Angela watched the two men with tears in her eyes but still said nothing. Jack took off his plaid shirt, under which he wore a gray T-shirt. He balled the plaid shirt up and stuck it under his head. He rolled onto his side, hugging his rifle like Lee had hugged his.
Before standing, Lee gave Angela a reassuring pat on the leg and his best confident smile. “Relax and try to get some sleep. Twelve hours from now, we’ll be back at my bunker and you can clean up and sleep in a real bed.”
She smiled bravely and Lee stood and walked to his post.
He hoped those words were true and that nothing unfortunate would befall them before they managed to get back home.
By the time he settled into position at the stump, he could already hear Jack breathing steadily, asleep.