The Remaining: Refugees (26 page)

It was here at the entrance to Campbell University that they entered a roundabout, turned onto Howard Drive, and immediately pulled left into a small shopping center with a coffee shop on one end and a Chinese-food restaurant on the other. They pulled towards the coffee shop and drove
around the back of the building
where they found another small car. It was parked alongsid
e the back of the building, facing
the same direction as their Geo.

As they parked behind it, Professor Tommy White and one of his students stepped out.
The older, long-haired man waved in greeting, but his face was stony, or as stony as it could be on such a
flaccid
little creature. White’s companion was some white kid with dreadlocks—yet another one of those wannabe hippie stoners, rebelling against two yuppie parents for committing the mortal sin of purchasing shoes made in Malaysia.

The two men met in the middle, their companions standing back a bit and keeping a watch not only for infected but for any other prying eyes.

Jerry extended his hand. “Professor, I’m glad to see you.”

White shook it limply and absently, as though he had weighty things on his mind that Jerry was interrupting. “Yes, thank you for meeting me.”

“Well,” Jerry clasped his hands together. “I say we cut to the chase and speak in very plain terms with each other. That will make things much simpler and more efficient.”

White regarded him with a quirked eyebrow, but nodded.

Jerry continued. “I’m sure we have our different reasons for how we came to this position, but I think we can both agree that Bus needs to be removed from power, and Captain Harden with him.”

White grimaced. “I don’t know if Bus is a part of
the
problem here…”

“He’s a part of my problem,” Jerry stated calmly. “
They have a symbiotic relationship, Professor. You must remove both if you are going to remove either. They are viewed as one and the same.
T
he original member
s of Camp Ryder
support the captain only because Bus sup
ports him. All the newcomers
love the captain because he saved them, but they
only
support Bus because Captain Harden supports him. They’re two different ends of the same problem.”

White shuffled his feet a bit, uncomfortable. “I don’t want any more bloodshed.”

“Nor do I.” Jerry put his hands inside his coat pockets. The brass at the base of the shotgun shells was cold on his fingers. “But I also don’t wish to die, and I think you and I can both agree that
that
is the end result for the path Bus and Captain Harden
have put us on.”

“We can just run. Avoid all the conflict. Band together and head for the mountains.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Jerry shook his head. “You’ve got a bunch of college students that don’t know anyth
ing about surviving in the wild
. You haven’t accepted any of Captain Harden’s guns, and neither have I. We’ve got no supplies, no medicine, no way of surviving outside of the Camp Ryder Hub.”

White’s eyes widened. “But you heard the guy last night! There are millions of them coming this way! We’ll never be able to survive that many.”

Jerry held up a finger. “He
thinks
there are millions of them heading this way. It’s an unproven threat. Don’t fall victim to Captain Harden’s overreaction to these things. While he uses them as an excuse to take more and more militaristic control of everyone, you’re using it as an excuse to run
prematurely
.
Both are equally dangerous.
”

“As opposed to what?” White’s voice raised up a little bit and the young guy with the dreadlocks looked over at them. “Waiting until they attack us to start running? That’s ridiculous! If we wait until they’re here, we’ll never make it out!”

Jerry pursed his lips. “Captain Harden got one thing right. There will be a stream of refugees fleeing from the north, as these supposed millions move south—
if
they move south. That will give us all the warning we need.”

“That leaves supplies,” White scratched at his temple.

“The supplies are there,” Jerry said. “And there will be more.”

White considered this. “Harden will never just give you his supplies, and he will fight for them.”

“Captain Harden won’t be here.” Jerry smiled. “He’s recruiting more goons to go with him and start blowing up every piece of infrastructure he can get his hands on, the fucking idiot. Camp Ryder’s going to be empty. But he’s going to leave behind supplies, because
the camp is
going to need them. He said he’s going to be sending all the refugees to Camp Ryder, right?”

“Right.”

“That will be our window of opportunity.”

“To steal the supplies.”

“To take over Camp Ryder,” Jerry corrected.

White fussed and growled. “This isn’t a military action! We’re not taking over anything!”

“We have to.” Jerry looked at the older man. “Don’t you get it? You’re not waltzing into Camp Ryder and taking those supplies. Not without getting into a firefight.
Captain Harden and his hit squads might be gone, but
Bus still pulls some weight.
I
f my people and your people are all united, and they are all armed, we can take over. And once Bus is out of the way, we have control of everything in Camp Ryder.”

“You said it yourself,” White pointed out. “My people are just students. Besides, I don’t want them shooting at each other.”

“They won’t.” Jerry sounded confident. “With all of our people together, we’ll completely outnumber Bus and his supporters. We go in all at once, everyone armed, and we won’t even have to fire a shot. They’ll give it up without a fight. As long as Captain Harden isn’t there to convince them otherwise.”

“And then we can
head for the hills
.”

Jerry dodged the question. “We’ll have the supplies to do so.”

“Alright.” Professor White looked off into the eastern sky, all the color melting out of it into a golden slag that ran across the horizon. It was already feeling warmer. “What do we need to do?”

CHAPTER 12:
RUMORS

Timber Creek seemed much smaller now. Staring out at the condominium complex from where his little truck idled at the front gates, Harper remembered how it felt the first time he’d come there to scavenge. At that time, with nothing but a few weapons to split amongst everyone, a handful of cartridges
, and relying heavily on Molotov cocktails, this place had seemed like an entire world of danger.

Now the burned out buildings seemed small and familiar, like he knew every charred brick, every gutted car, and every broken piece of concrete that littered the complex. He’d been here so many times even before his first encounter with
Captain Lee Harden. He remembered
the man
,
exhausted, weaponless, blood running down his back from multiple lacerations.

Harper smiled grimly.

He remembered he’d told
him
to get lost
…a
mong other things.

Over the past three
months,
they’d been there many times more. It was Lee’s preferred spot
to take them for
putting some rounds down range
and to practice their squad tactics. And now Harper was here with the twenty volun
teers from Camp Ryder.

To train them, apparently.

Harper had no idea how to train people into a working unit, so he did exactly what he
remembered Lee doing:
sweep the complex
for infected
, split
everyone
into two groups
, instruct one group while the other watches your back.

T
he first ten line
d
up,
facing one of the long brick condominium buildings
.
Harper
took a roll of duct tape and pasted ten crosses at chest height
,
at even intervals along the wall. One for each trainee. Then he paced them
back
about fifteen yards.

As he did this, he noticed the almost military rigidity of the trainees and it pissed him off a bit.

He
was no firearms
expert
. And he sure as hell wasn’t a drill instructor. He didn’t know what these people anticipated when he told them he would be training them, but it wasn’t going to be any crawling under barbed wire fences and bullshit like that. As far as Harper was concerned, that was great for what Lee referred to as “stress-inoculation,” when you were trying to get Johnny
Dough-Boy
out of his comfort zone. But a
ll of these people were already inoculated to stress in the worst way, and the proof of it was that they were still alive
.

He
crossed his arms
.
“
Everyone relax,” he grouched. “
You’ve all learned the basics of how to work and sight your rifle—stance, grip, trigger pull, good sight picture and sight alignment. Take your time.
Put ten rounds in your target.
”

He stepped back and waited.

It took everyone a moment to realize there weren’t any more instructions.

Then they shouldered their rifles and began sighting in at the duct tape crosses staring back at them. The first fusillade rang out, always the loudest. It started with a single shot then grew to a
crescendo as everyone joined in
.
I
t tapered off and began to take a steadier pace, as each trainee found their own rhythm.

When ten rounds had been fired, Harper walked behind them and took a glance at their targets. Not bad shooting, overall. Of course there were a few people that needed help, but there were a few people who had punched the entire center of their target out.

“Again,” he called.

Ten more rounds fired out, slow and deliberate.

When they were finished, Harper re-taped the
crosses and faced the trainees with a furrowed brow.
They stared at him expectantly, rigidly, as though this were some intense military training. He didn’t know why that bothered him, but it did, and he needed to say something about it.

“Look…let’s get something out of the way here early on
,” he said.
“
Captain Harden asked me to train you folks how to work as a team, and how to shoot those firearms he gave you during co
mbat. I’m not a soldier.
I’m not a professional instructor. Captain Harden asked me to do something, and I’m doing it.”

He twirled the roll of duct tape in his hands. “I’m not going to yell at any of you. There’s not going to be any PT, or
punishment
. This isn’t boot camp. You’ve already been through boot camp.
I
t was called ‘surviving the end of the world’.”