Harden (Lee Harden Series (The Remaining Universe) Book 1) Page 2

  TWO

  ─▬▬▬─

  LAST STAND

  The sweat was pouring down Abe’s dark face, getting in his eyes, and tickling through his beard. But he didn’t dare take his hands off of Lee’s chest. He didn’t dare stop the chest compressions, even though his core felt like it was splitting from lactic acid, and his triceps were cramping.

  Everything else had become peripheral—their desperate mission into Alabama, the fact that they had no clue who the hell had attacked them, and the fact that all this gunfire was sure to attract primals. Abe’s only concern in the world was trying to keep Lee’s blood pressure high enough to stave off brain death.

  At the front door, Carl and Tomlin disappeared into the darkness, like the night had swallowed them.

  A second or two after they’d gone out, the night exploded into chaos. He heard Carl’s .308 rifle pound out a few rounds, but then it was all lost in the din of hectic return fire and the screaming of men that Abe prayed wasn’t Carl or Tomlin.

  A round smacked through the window, whining over Abe’s head and smashing something in the kitchen.

  Julia ducked down over Lee’s body, her hands on his carotid, trying to feel for that pulse.

  “Come on, Lee,” she pleaded, quiet as a prayer for the dead.

  “Come on,” Abe gasped as he pumped Lee’s chest, feeling that horrible wall approaching him where he knew that his body was going to give out. He just had to keep going a little further… “Come on!” Pump. Pump. Pump. “Come on!”

  “Wait! Stop!” Julia commanded.

  Abe nearly collapsed, sucking wind.

  Outside, the gunfire continued, nonstop.

  But it wasn’t directed at them anymore.

  Julia swept her hand up, pushing the mask and Nate’s hands out of the way to uncover Lee’s mouth. She hovered there for a moment, staring, her cheek close to his lips, her fingers still pressed against his throat.

  Then she nodded and bolted upright. “He’s got a pulse! Let’s go!”

  Julia rammed whatever she could grab into her medical pack and zipped it closed in one motion, then hauled it onto her back, leaving behind a disaster area of medical detritus and sterile wrappings.

  Abe staggered to his feet, still barely able to catch enough breath. He bent to grab one of Lee’s arms, but Julia had the common sense to see that he was physically spent from nearly five straight minutes of doing chest compressions. She slapped his shoulder.

  “You cover us,” she said. “Me and Nate’ll carry him.”

  Abe nodded and grabbed his rifle from where he’d slung it off to his left side. It felt treacherously heavy. He pulled it into his shoulder and raised it, and felt his shoulders twist at such a minor strain.

  Breathe, he ordered himself. Get your heart rate down.

  Nate and Julia each grabbed one of Lee’s arms, and started hauling him back into the apartment towards the back door. Abe plunged ahead of them, fumbling through the dark.

  He registered the stale smell of old death, leaking through the stink of his own sweat. By gradations of shadows, he picked out what could have been the long-ago-rotted body of the apartment’s previous tenant—now just a jumble of clothing and bones, huddled by the back door.

  He kicked a desiccated limb out of the path of the door. It sounded like dry wood wrapped in plastic. Abe’s hands scrambled over the locks on the backdoor, undid the deadbolt and threw the door open.

  Fresh, night air washed over him.

  He punched through the door with his rifle at a high-ready, then cleared right, then left.

  “Clear!”

  Nate and Julia dragged Lee’s body out of the apartment.

  Straight ahead, trees huddled in darkness.

  To their right, the road.

  Behind them, the rattle of gunfire—which hopefully meant that Carl and Tomlin were still alive and fighting.

  They plunged straight ahead, into the trees, Abe leading them. Branches and leaves reared up through the gloom at him, lashing his face.

  The stand of trees was thin. About fifty yards through it, they stumbled back out into the open again. Overgrown grass and weeds that grabbed at his tired feet.

  “We need to get indoors,” Julia puffed, her face showing strain as she looked around them. A vein visibly standing out on her forehead, even in the darkness.

  There was no shelter on their side of the road. Everything was across the street.

  “Primals,” Nate whispered between gulps of air, spittle from desperate breathing wetting his lower lip and chin. “They’re gonna be attracted to the gunfire.”

  “I know,” Abe growled.

  Nate was right. The primals were going to show up. They always did. Like carrion birds, they were attuned to human conflict because they knew that meat would be left behind.

  Abe took a big breath. “Alright.” He pointed across the road. “We’re going straight across. The quicker we move, the faster we’re out of sight. Let me sub in with one of you.”

  Julia clung stubbornly to Lee’s arm, but Nate nodded quickly, looking exhausted.

  Abe slung his rifle and shouldered Nate out of position, taking Lee’s limp right arm. “Get on point, Nate. Lead us across the road.”

  Nate gulped a few breaths, then shouldered his own rifle with exhaustion-clumsy hands and directed his muzzle down the street, where the gunfight was still raging. “Alright,” he mumbled. “Moving.”

  He sprinted across the street.

  Got to the ditch on the other side. Went down on a knee and covered the road.

  Abe gave him a three-count, waiting for him to open fire, but Nate held steady.

  “Okay, Jules, let’s move.”

  They hauled Lee across the street, the unconscious man’s boot heels scraping on the concrete. Abe’s slung rifle jumped around and jabbed at his side.

  Halfway across the street the sound of the gunfire changed from the pop-pop-pop of someone shooting at someone else, to the very distinct snap-buzz of incoming fire.

  Abe grit his teeth and tried to pull faster.

  He made it another two steps before something smacked his right calf.

  “Shit!” was all he managed.

  They tumbled into the ditch, Abe falling first as his leg collapsed under him, then Lee on top of him, and Julia on top of Lee.

  “Contact!” Nate yelled, and opened up with his rifle.

  Abe writhed out from under the tangle of bodies. For a moment, Lee’s face was pressed against his. Julia was shouting at him, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

  “Move!” Nate was yelling at them as he fired. “Get to cover!”

  Julia was already up on her feet again, tugging at Lee’s left arm as Abe struggled up, the pain in his calf lancing all the way up his body, tingling in his lower back.

  But he could move. He had to move.

  He got ahold of Lee’s right arm again and he and Julia started pulling for the first piece of cover in front of them—a long, squat, steel building.

  Abe and Julia made it to the corner of the building. Abe staggered to a stop, still clinging to Lee’s arm, readjusting his sweating, loosening grip. He registered that Nate wasn’t firing anymore. He looked behind him to see if Nate was running for cover, and saw Nate simply lying there, face-first in the dirt.

  “Nate!” Abe yelled.

  No response.

  A flurry of four or five rounds hit Nate’s body and twitched it about, puffing little clouds of blood and dust into the moonlight.

  Abe almost called out to Nate again, though he couldn’t figure out why.

  Julia was already pulling them on again.

  “Come on,” she belted out between haggard gulps of air. “We gotta keep moving!”

  ***

  “That’s it,” Carl called out, as the slide on his pistol locked back. “Empty.”

  Carl pulled back behind the kitchen counter of the apartment. Their last little redoubt.

  Tomlin sat there, shoulder to
shoulder with Carl in the darkness, and they both stared at the empty pistol as though it were all a cosmic joke.

  Their rifles were already empty, laying useless at their sides. The ground around them was littered with brass and all the empty magazines that they’d already used up.

  Around them, the night huddled, black as the pit, and their vision was speckled with the ghostly after-images of their own muzzle flashes.

  “Well, shit,” Tomlin said.

  Carl nodded, dropped his hand holding the empty pistol to his side.

  The return gunfire from outside of the apartment had now slowed to trickle. Just random potshots. After another few seconds, it stopped altogether.

  There were some shouts from outside. Neither Tomlin nor Carl could tell what they were saying. Their eardrums were destroyed at this point. They’d shot about two hundred rounds in that small, enclosed space. The world was humming, and even each other’s voices, a foot away, were hard to hear.

  Gunsmoke filled the kitchen like a low-hanging bank of fog.

  Tomlin could taste it on his tongue. Sharp and metallic.

  He cleared his throat and spat. “They always say not to shoot in unventilated areas. We probably have lead poisoning or something.”

  Carl puffed out a breath. “You know, that’s something I always liked about you, Brian. You always kept it lighthearted.”

  “Yeah?” Tomlin felt sick to his stomach. If his hands weren’t clenched, they would’ve been shaking. “Shit, Carl. I never even realized you had a sense of humor.”

  “Well…” Carl released the slide on his pistol and slid it back into its holster. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Someone shouted at them from somewhere in the apartment. Incoherent syllables.

  “The fuck did he say?” Tomlin asked.

  Carl just shook his head.

  More shouting. Then the shouting stopped.

  “You think we gave them enough time to get away?” Tomlin asked.

  Carl shrugged. “We did the best we could.” He raised his left fist to Tomlin. “It’s been good workin’ with you, sir.”

  Tomlin bumped his fist to Carl’s. “Yeah. Knives?”

  “Might as well.”

  Both of them were reaching for their knives when a shape loomed in the kitchen window. The glass was already broken from a multitude of gunshots. A rifle barrel jammed its way through and Carl and Tomlin froze.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ move!” the shadowy figure screeched at them. “Don’t you fuckin’ move or I’ll kill both of you, I swear to God! Hey! Hey, I got ‘em! I got ‘em in the kitchen! They’re in the kitchen!”

  Tomlin sat there, staring up at the dark figure.

  There came a point where even a professional warfighter must admit that his opponent has gotten the drop on them. And in that moment, you know that any gesture you make will leave you dead, and that will be that. The guy that kills you likely won’t be terribly impressed by you trying to make a last-ditch move.

  Tomlin also knew that sometimes, if you’re patient, an opportunity will open up for you, and you’ll have a far better chance than you did if you simply tried to kamikaze your way out.

  All of this occurred to Tomlin in the second or so of him staring up into the muzzle of that rifle.

  “Put your hands up!” the man in the window was screaming. “Hands up! Hands up!”

  Slowly, Tomlin and Carl both raised their hands.

  The kitchen abruptly filled with bodies. Boots squeaking on linoleum. Men shouting. Grabbing them. Punching them. Kicking them.

  A buttstock to the side of his face made Tomlin’s world turn to stars.

  A second blow knocked him out completely.

  ***

  The primals were coming.

  Abe and Julia pulled Lee’s body through the ink-dipped ghost town of Hurtsboro.

  The gunfire in the distance had gone silent moments ago. But another sound had replaced it.

  Some people called it a howl, but Julia had never thought it sounded like a howl. It was more like a scream. It was the raging, aggressive animal that abides deep down in all human beings. After the FURY bacterium ate away their frontal lobe, the primal animal was all that remained.

  “We need to get inside,” Abe said.

  They stumbled up to the basement door of a split-level house. It was nearly covered by a shrub that had grown up to monstrous proportions.

  Abe collapsed against the brick wall of the house, breathing hard, trying to rest his wounded leg. Sweat poured down his face. Pain evident in his features.

  “I’ll clear it,” Julia said.

  She left Abe holding onto Lee. She tested the door, found it unlocked.

  She slipped in. Her eyes were already adjusted to the dark, and she didn’t bother with her weaponlight. She cleared the basement area with the economical movement of something practiced thousands of times. It smelled musty, but there was no stench of piss and shit, which meant that they hadn’t stumbled into a primal den.

  Small miracles.

  She went back out and helped Abe pull Lee into the basement.

  She closed and locked the door as Abe laid Lee out on the hard floor—concrete with a thin layer of industrial carpeting tiles. Then Abe collapsed on the floor beside him and began to address his own leg wound.

  Julia would help him in a moment. “I need to clear the upstairs,” she said, her voice low.

  Abe nodded.

  She dropped her medical pack, her lower back screaming with relief. She went up the basement stairwell, like a burglar invading an occupied dwelling. She listened to the house, and it was silent, but out beyond the walls, she could hear them. Drawing closer.

  They were going to feed on the dead.

  They’re going to feed on Nate.

  And what about Carl and Tomlin?

  No. Don’t think about it.

  Up the stairs.

  The middle level was a kitchen and a living room. The top level was bedrooms.

  The house was empty. Quiet. Abandoned. Whoever had lived here had not mounted a defense when the infection had stricken the world. They’d probably evacuated. Died in some FEMA camp somewhere. Probably died wishing they’d just stayed here in this house.

  Back down to the mid-level, Julia went to the kitchen and grabbed wooden chairs from around the small, dining room table. She propped one up under the doorknob of the kitchen door, then the front door. Then she took one downstairs and propped it up under the basement door.

  It was just a stopgap.

  If the primals wanted to get in this house, they would get in.

  If they wanted to feed on Julia and Abe and Lee, they would.

  Julia and Abe would take several of them down, but the primals would eventually rip them apart.

  They could only hope that they would be ignored.

  In that basement, as the shrieks and calls of the creatures without sounded closer and closer, Julia didn’t dare use her flashlight. She didn’t even dare use the chemlight. So she worked in darkness, and in silence, trying to stop Abe’s bleeding, and trying to keep Lee alive, and wondering for the first time since the ambush had been sprung on them, How the fuck did all of this go so bad?

  THE PREVIOUS WEEK

  THREE

  ─▬▬▬─

  FIELD 29

  Lee stepped out of the pickup truck.

  The sandy loam shifted slightly under his feet.

  The type of soil that didn’t grow things willingly. It had to be coaxed. Anything worthwhile had to be pried from it like a gold coin from the purse of a miser.

  He stood to the passenger’s side of the truck with the door still hanging open. It was a late model F-150 that had once been white. Now caked with two years’ worth of mud and dust. Mismatched offroad tires. A battered brushguard on the front.

  Lee’s rifle was at rest, muzzle pointing at the ground, but his hand still held the grip, finger poised outside the trigger guard.

  Behind him, another truck, identic
al to the one he’d just exited.

  This was his team:

  Abe and Tomlin beside him.

  Carl, Nate, and Julia in the truck behind.

  Not sure what they’d find at Field 29, they were all in full battle rattle. Some of them in jeans. Some in fatigues. But all of them wearing their plate carriers, and all of them strapped with a rifle and a pistol, and extra mags for both.

  M4’s mostly, with the exception of Carl, who’d gone with his scoped AR-10 in case they needed any long-range capabilities.

  Helmets were kept stowed. It didn’t look like they were going to need them: what they were going up against didn’t shoot bullets—it went for the jugular.

  The two pickups idled in the still morning air.

  The road beneath them was hard-packed sand that cut through a forest of pines. Straight ahead, the pines cleared out, and a huge field lay there, the dirt heavily tilled and brown amongst the live-wire green of a newly-born spring.

  In the middle of the field, frozen in its work, a large red tractor, towing behind it a gang of disc plows.

  Further back in the field, a command trailer, still attached to the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck that had towed it there.

  To the right-hand side of the road, just inside the field, a smaller tractor sat, with an auger half-plunged into the ground. A bundle of heavy-duty fence posts sat beside this tractor. A spool of electric wire sat unused beside the rest of these supplies.

  The fencing had barely been started.

  Lee bit his lip hard, and felt his heart sink, pulling his insides taut.

  What were they thinking?

  They should’ve known better than to run the plow tractor before the fencing was up.

  But he knew what they’d been thinking.

  They’d been thinking that they had to hurry. That time was of the essence. That there were thousands of people in the Fort Bragg Safe Zone, and beyond that, the entire United Eastern States, that were on the verge of running out of food.

  And of course, they’d probably also been thinking that their protective detail would be enough. That if the primals came, all the workers and the protective detail could simply pile into the command trailer on the HEMTT and wait them out until the QRF arrived.