The Remaining: Refugees (29 page)

“Would either of you like some food or water?”

They looked at each other.

“Yes,” Kyle said. “He’s hungry. If you have some to spare.”

“Of course.” Angela retrieved the jug of water and two of the three bowls of oatmeal from the table where she’d placed them. She set the water jug between Mike and Kyle, and offered them both a bowl.

Kyle shook his head. “He can have mine. I’m not hungry.”

Mike snapped a look at him. “You have to eat, too.”

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t eaten…” Mike seemed to realize his protests were falling on deaf ears and turned his attention to Angela. “He hasn’t eaten in two days.”

“I’m fine.”

Angela forced herself to smile, even as her throat thickened. She gave Mike his bowl and pushed the other into Kyle’s hands. “Kyle, there’s enough for both of you to eat, okay? Please
, just eat
. I can get more.”

As if eating were a
n
unbearable shame, Kyle stared down into the bowl.

The argument apparently settled, Mike attacked his bowl.
Kyle followed, pacing himself as though to prove the point that he was, in fact, not that hungry.

“So,” Angela rubbed her hands together for warmth. “Where are you guys from?”

“Out east,” Kyle said, still intently focused on his oatmeal. “Little town called
Snow Hill
.”

“How long have you been on the road?”

“Couple weeks.”

“
Oh.
” Angela was surprised. “So you stayed in
Snow Hill
for a while?”

He took a big bite of oatmeal and looked at her quizzically. “Yeah. We had a farm.
Did okay for ourselves.
Why do you ask?”

Angela shrugged. “Just curious why you left.”

Kyle tapped his spoon against the side of the bowl and considered this for a moment. “
The Followers. You ever hear of them
?”

“Yes. Mostly just rumors.”

“Yeah, well.” Kyle turned back to his food.
“Same here. But it was enough to scare their father, and he made me promise to get them out of there.”

Angela’s eyebrows went up. “So you’re not the children’s father?”

“He’s our uncle,” Mike said quietly.

Kyle eyed the teenager. “Yes. I’m their uncle.”

Angela leaned forward. “So what about The Followers scared you guys so much?”

“Pretty much everything, really.” Kyle glanced up at the privacy screen. “But I think…what they say about the women and girls…I think that’s what scared him the most.”

Angela shifted in her seat. “Kyle, this might sound a little silly…but what have
you
heard about The Followers?”

The man sucked at his teeth and regarded Angela with that same piercing stare, as though there were many questions rolling around inside his brain, but in the end it seemed that he shrugged them away and left them unspoken. “
Marty Wiscoe. I heard he was some hellfire and brimstone televangelist before all this happened. Then when people started going crazy, he
said
it was God’s judgment on the world for being so wicked. Bunch of people joined his congregation right before things fell apart
. Called themselves the Followers of the Rapture
.
Kind of a cult, I guess
.”

Kyle took a heavy breath. “The rumors about them are
pretty
far-fetched. Some people s
ay that Marty Wiscoe’s the anti
christ. Some people say he’s going around preaching the gospel. Most of the rumors are that when he comes to town, his ‘congregation’ is more well-armed than you’d expect church folk to be. He makes all the men
in town
repent of their sins, and promise to follow God, the Bible, and him. If they agree, they become part of his ‘Lord’s Army.’ If they refuse, he hangs them on crosses.” Kyle shook his head. “But they also say that he forces people to eat their own children, that he’s growing horns, and that he can make people burst into flames with the power of his mind.”

Angela shook her head. “And what is it that they say about the women and girls?”

“They say he kidnaps all the girls of childbearing age. Gives them the
great
honor of
bearing the next generation of his Lord’s Army. Keeps them as wives and…” he lowered his voice slightly. “…sex slaves for his men.”

Angela swallowed. “Sounds like a lot of rumors.”

“Yeah.
” He set his bowl aside, empty.
“
There’s probably not much truth to it.”

Kyle and Mike exchanged a
n
uncertain
glance.

Neither looked convinced.

CHAPTER 13:
SANFORD

Cold dawn had given way to a relatively warm day. Lee’s estimate was that it was around fifty degrees. Tendrils of
white
cloud
s
streaked
the sky like contrails, running east to west. The sun was between them now, and Lee enjoyed its momentary glow on his face.

They made it into Sanford, to the tallest building they could find. Some four story structure on the corner of Steele Street and Carthage Street that bore a
sign
of
faded
white paint across red brick
that declared
it the Sanford Business College.
The doors and windows were already busted in, so Lee and LaRouche made their way to the stairs and
went
up to the roof.

Clearing the entire building would have taken too much time, but as they ascended the stairwell, they opened the door to each level and listened carefully. Their concern was with any human occupation, rather than infected. Except in the pursuit of prey, infected tended to stay on the ground. They heard nothing at each floor, and if the building was occupied, those inside were staying very quiet.

As they went, Lee thought about the lack of females, and the more he thought about it the more he began to insist to himself that they would see some today. Sanford had the biggest population of any city they’d cleared
since Smithfield
, so it stood to reason the horde would be larger, or there would be several hordes inside the city.
It was just a numbers game.

Surely, there would be females here.

And
when they saw the females,
that knot in the cradle of his stomach would go away. Thing
s
would go back to their relative normalcy. The i
nfected would be the same enemy, and he would continue to deal with them in the same ways. The lack of females in the last few cities would be a curiosity, but nothing more.
There would be nothing new to worry about.

They reached the
roof, dropped their packs
,
and
settled in
.

They waited.

Hours passed.

The hard roof and brick abutment became uncomfortable, and the two men shifted positions often.
They sipped at water to stay hydrated, and occasionally ate a strip of deer jerky to stave off hunger. Frequently one of them would poke their head over the ledge to see if a horde had emerged from their den, but they knew before looking that there wasn’t
—they would have been able to hear it or smell it
.

The knot in Lee’s stomach cinched itself a little tighter.

A
round midday, LaRouche rose to his knees, exposing his entire torso and let out an exasperated sigh. “What the fuck, man? This place is a goddamned ghost town.”

Lee wanted to tell him to
settle
down, that they w
ould show up, but the truth was that
LaRouche had taken the words right out of his mouth. He hitched one arm onto the abutment and pulled himself to his knees beside the sergeant. Together, they looked out over the city.

Across from them stood a bank
, more shops, a diner. There were no cars parked alongside of the road, which was odd. Plenty of trash though. More than a few shell casings glittered on the concrete below them. Here and there, an empty magazine ejec
ted from an M4. Trails of pock
marks ran across brick walls like ellipses on an interrupted sentence.

Something violent had happened.

Nothing unusual.

There were a few bodies, decayed and beginning to skeletonize. Other than their quiet presence, the place
was
deserted.

“I dunno,” Lee
said tightly
.

“I feel like we usually have eyes on them by now.”

“Maybe they’re in another section of the city.”

“Could be.”

“
Maybe we should move.
” Lee raised one knee up and rested his elbow there.

LaRouche made a face and looked out at the city again. “
Well, w
e’ve already wasted half the day.”

Lee nodded. “I say we move south toward the other end of town, see if we can catch sight of the
horde
.”

“If there is one.”

“Why wouldn’t there be?”

“I don’t know.” LaRouche shrugged, and said no more.

Lee stood and shouldered his pack.
“There’ll be a horde.”

Almost as though he hoped for it.

On his feet, he could see further over the abutment to the south end of town. Steel Street stretched out and continued on through several intersections. He wished they could cut across the tops of the buildings. Roofs had become a sort of safety zone for them. The ground was where the
danger was
.

Lee moved towards the door to the stairwell. “Let’s get going.”

“Hold up…”

Lee glanced behind him, expecting to see LaRouche dawdling with his pack, but instead the man was standing, his neck extended out, focused intensely on something to the south,
tense
like a bird dog with its eyes on a quail. Lee instinctively tried to follow LaRouche’s gaze, but there was so much to see from this vantage point he had no idea
what
the sergeant was looking
at
.

“What is it?”

LaRouche waved a hand and knelt. “Get down…come here.”

Lee watched him duck-walk quickly to the southern-facing abutment and peer over. Lee followed closely behind, settling to his knees, but looking at LaRouche, rather than over the abutment. “What is it? What do you see?”

“I can’t tell,” LaRouche whispered. “Way d
own there at the intersection
.”