The Remaining: Fractured (57 page)

***

LaRouche walked ahead of the well-spoken stranger. He could feel the heat of the man’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him through the woods. He’d tied a half-assed blindfold around LaRouche’s face, but LaRouche could still see out the bottom, so he was able to walk the forest floor with some accuracy, avoiding roots and brambles and keeping his feet.

His mind was still a slurry of remorse, self-hatred, self-pity. He had not gotten around to thinking about how he was going to get out of this mess, how he was going to get away from this guy. In fact, he just kept thinking, as though it was a foregone conclusion, that they would either execute him or convert him, and he did not think much past that point.

Either they would execute him.

Or they would convert him.

As though he had no choice in the matter. As though it had already been decided. And perhaps it had. Perhaps he had already decided what he would do if that option was presented to him. So he just kept walking along through the half-dark woods, wondering when he would reach the point of no return, when he would reach that ultimate decision. To continue living, or to convert?

Because that was what these people did. They converted, or they killed. So the only question that needed to be considered was whether LaRouche wanted to continue to live or not. Perhaps a sidebar question—was it
worth
living anymore, or was it time to just give up? Throw in the towel? Say that enough was enough?

He kept picturing in his head, his throbbing, slowly sobering head, the moment when he’d pulled the trigger. How sure he’d been at that time that Father Jim had been trying to kill him with a rock. So undoubtedly sure.

Now? He wasn’t so sure. He kept replaying it in his mind, and every time he did he came up with a different conclusion. Perhaps Father Jim hadn’t been reaching for a rock. Perhaps he had only sought some traction, trying to get out from under LaRouche. Maybe he’d just killed the man for no reason.

The man
?

Let’s not mince words,
LaRouche thought bitterly.
He was your friend. You killed your friend. And now what do you have? You have nothing. Nothing but a big decision coming up on you, and no one there to help you make it. Do you want to live, or do you want to die?

He remained undecided.

The ground passing beneath his feet, the narrow window that he had of it through the space between the blindfold and his cheeks, it grew lighter. The colors grew bolder. So slowly, so steadily, you almost didn’t notice it happening. There was the smell of dawn—the oaky smell of dew rising up from the ground and carrying with it all the particulates of dead and fallen plant matter that they rose from. There was also the smell of the salt water—LaRouche could not mistake that. It made his heart ache and brought to mind all the summer vacations he’d ever taken to the beach and would never take again.

In that moment he wanted to walk on warm sand more than anything. But he knew he would never have the opportunity to do so. He tried to remember back to the last time he had gone to the beach, because that would soon become
the last time
he ever went. Tried to remember the shifting of the sand underneath the balls of his feet. The feeling of the grit between his toes. The heat of it. The sun beating down on his face. The sound of the gulls crying greedily as they rode the cross breeze. The steady pounding surf.

But it was a half-finished painting. No sooner had he conjured it in his mind than he was pulled back to the real world and its cold, damp, November chill. And the reality that he would never again walk on those beaches, never again be carefree. Those times, those times that he’d stupidly thought were the toughest of times, when he’d complained about such normalcies as rent and girlfriends and his ancient, ailing pickup…those times were gone.

All of this heartache, this remembrance, it was in the air around him, unavoidable. But there was something else in the breeze that caught his attention, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but he wasn’t sure why. Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that his subconscious brain had somehow decoded and was apparently concerned about.

“You smell that?” LaRouche asked his captor.

“Smell what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You trying to fuck with me?”

“No…it’s…”

“Just keep walking. We’re almost there.”

So they walked on. The moment passed, and whatever LaRouche had detected faded either as he left it behind, or his nose became accustomed to it. In either case, he did as he was told and just kept walking. He tilted his head back so he could see ahead of him a bit. The ground rose and he leaned into it, planting his feet firmly in the rise. There was gravel, and the leaves thinned.

Then there was blacktop.

The sound of a river.

He walked on the blacktop. Little white rocks passed under his feet like constellations and he walked across them. He felt both sober and drunk now. Sick enough to be both. His stomach clawed at his throat. Like his insides had gone to war with each other.

“Praise God!” Someone far ahead of them shouted.

“And peace to you,” The man behind him intoned.

It had the sound of a password. Something read out of rote memorization because it was required and not believed. LaRouche was not told to stop so he continued walking, continued thinking about the river, and where it was going. Out to sea. Where he wished he was. Would it be so bad if he flung himself over the rail? Drowned in the waters with his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back? Would it be so bad if that dark, cold river bore him out to sea where he wanted to be?

It would be a good way to die. As good as any. And better than most.

The voice in front of them was much closer now. “What have we here?”

LaRouche’s captor put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Found him sneaking around in the woods.”

“Is he one of them?”

“He came from the direction of their camp, but I haven’t questioned him. He’s drunk.”

“Hm.”

Someone poked LaRouche in the chest.

“Hey! Where are you coming from?”

“Tennessee,” LaRouche said, mumbled like there were cotton balls in his mouth.

“And what brings you so far east, my friend?” This was the man in front of LaRouche.

“Lookin’ for the beach. Lookin’ to die.”

There was silence for the better part of a minute. Perhaps the two men were discussing what to do with LaRouche in mouthed words and silent gestures. LaRouche stood blankly. The clay on the potter’s wheel. Formless and ready to be made into anything.

“Alright.” The man in front. “Take Darren and the car. Get him back to the FOB. Let Deacon Chalmers decide what to do with him.”

Then they walked some more.

At some point, LaRouche’s captor called out to another man—Darren, LaRouche presumed—and then led LaRouche to an old, baby blue car. A Toyota or Nissan, he couldn’t quite tell. Darren came and took the driver’s seat. LaRouche was positioned in the front passenger seat. The car smelled of stale cigarettes and gasoline. Like the inside of a mechanic’s shop. It was cold and moist, like they’d left the windows down during a rain.

LaRouche’s captor sat directly behind him. “You do anything stupid I’ll blow your brains out. Understand?”

LaRouche just nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

***

Wilson could hear the river approaching. He was not much of a woodsman, but he’d followed the trail to the best of his ability, taking note of tracks in the mud that were barely visible in the early-dawn light, broken branches, matted leaves. Maybe he wasn’t even following LaRouche anymore. Maybe he’d just happened upon some old deer trail and was wandering off into nowhere.

Dorian and Tim remained with him. Tim was right behind Wilson, and Dorian was in the back. All rifles were up, pointed out into the woods. The gray trees each a sentinel, each a body that could come alive and attack them at any moment. They’d been at an intense level of caution since finding Father Jim’s body, and there still seemed no end in sight.

All the while, Wilson maintained his composure. Inside, he was a wreck. A blithering fucking wreck. Seeing Father Jim—hell, even thinking about him—lying there with his brains strewn across the ground made him want to drop right there. Bawl his eyes out. It made everything in his chest so tight that he was forced to push it away because he couldn’t breathe.

And then there was LaRouche. Goddamn LaRouche. What had happened? What was the reason? Was it as bad as Wilson thought it was, or was there some rational explanation? God, he wanted there to be an explanation so badly. He wanted to find LaRouche and have the former sergeant tell him how it was all a big misunderstanding. How one of The Followers had sniped Father Jim from the woods and now LaRouche was bravely tracking him down to exact revenge.

But Wilson knew.

He fucking
knew.

LaRouche had killed Father Jim. Maybe there was some explanation why that had happened, but LaRouche taking off running through the woods didn’t make it seem like it had been an accident. So Wilson was forced to amend his thought.

LaRouche had
murdered
Father Jim.

Whether or not Dorian and Tim felt as strongly about the situation, or were as close to being driven to their knees by the toll it took on them as Wilson was, he would never know. They tracked along behind him, silently. Perhaps because they were struck mute by the murder of a friend by someone who they had trusted. Or perhaps simply because they didn’t want to attract attention.

Wilson didn’t know, and he wasn’t so sure that he cared.

Emotionally, he was lost in his own world.

Up ahead, he could see the abrupt end of the trees and the ground around them turned to a certain consistency that spoke of coastal marshes. Beyond the end of the trees, the river moved, turbulent, it seemed, and reflected back a sky as gray as gunsmoke.

The trail led towards it, a slight depression in the earth, and Wilson followed it, though he realized that it had been some time since he’d last seen anything that looked like a boot track. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was no tracker. Who knows what he’d been tracking this whole time? And what the fuck did he think he was going to do if he actually did find LaRouche?

He had no idea.

Capture him?

Interrogate him?

He felt like he was just doing what he was supposed to do. Going through the motions. Maybe it was the nightmarish quality of it all, or maybe it was the half-light of the almost-morning that always made him feel like he waded through some irresolute dream sequence.

They reached the edge of the river. The bank sloped down into mud. Already their boots sank into it, maybe an inch deep. It sucked at the soles of their shoes and slopped loudly. Wilson stood there at the bank, like another one of these gray trees that lined the river. Holding his rifle. Trying to look the part. A whitewashed tomb full of dead men’s bones.

He watched the water, almost entranced by it.

“What the fuck, LaRouche?” he murmured to himself. “What did you do?”

“Uh…” Dorian’s voice. “Wilson…you seein’ this shit?”

Wilson raised his eyes off the hypnotic movement of the water. “What?”

Dorian stepped up beside Wilson and pointed out across the water, towards the opposite bank. “You see that?”

Wilson squinted. The opposite bank was alive. The trees were moving. All their gray, leafless limbs sloshed in the shallow water as though they were trying to cross, but there were more trees on that side of the river than here. So many pale, gray trees that it looked like a log jam. And they moved. Further inland, too. Wilson could see them moving with the river, moving east.

He stared. Didn’t react.

Dorian’s voice was higher than normal. “You fuckin’ see that shit? You see it?”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the preoccupation with what had happened between LaRouche and Father Jim, but it took Wilson that long to figure out what he was looking at. And when he did he felt like he was slipping into the river himself, being washed away.

“Holy shit.” He looked east, down the river where they were headed, and just in the distance he could see the bridge. The bridge where The Followers had set their roadblock. And he knew that Lee had been right all along. But now they were going to be too late. There was no possible way they could blow the bridge in time—not with The Followers still standing guard.

Madly, he thought that maybe just maybe The Followers would join them, since it was mutually beneficial. But who would go to them? Who would risk the white flag when they knew that in all likelihood they would be captured and killed regardless?

“How many do you think there are?” Dorian said, breathlessly.

“I don’t know.” Wilson stared at them, tried to estimate, but it seemed his mind was not clear enough to focus on numbers and figures. So he simply threw out what he believed to be a safe guess. “At least a couple thousand.”

So jam-packed together that their homogenous gray skin seemed to be all parts of one massive creature that lumbered down the river bank, searching for a way to cross, they approached the bridge over the Roanoke River, so many infected that they could not be counted.

Wilson gathered himself.

Think about what Lee would want you to do.

What should I do?

He turned. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

They began to run.

They had gotten no more than twenty yards back into the woods when the heard it, and it stopped them in their tracks. It was the noise of splitting air, the roar of the earth cracking along its fault lines. A percussion that shook the trees around them and made their ears ring and caused the three of them to flatten themselves into the mud like the eastern sky had opened and the apocalypse had come to earth. There were a series of tearing sounds, almost simultaneous, like the fabric of the world around them was being rent, and then blasts that shook them, chattered their teeth together, and turned their stomachs.