The Remaining: Refugees (50 page)

Aloud, he said,
“What about the others?”

“There were no others.” Harper’s voice was flat. “This was the only one left. The others were dead and this one was eating them to stay alive.”

Lee made a face.
“Has anyone from Lillington seen you guys?”

“No, we’re a couple blocks from the outpost, and we’re outta sight.”

“Good.
How many do you have with you?”

“I’ve got five, besides myself.”

“Count Jacob out,” Lee said. “He needs to stay with his…subject. Send one other person with him to help if the thing gets out of hand, then let him take your pickup straight to Smithfield, and don’t let anyone see them. You and the other three beg, borrow, or steal a vehicle from Lillington—I’m sure Old Man Hughes will loan you one—and get up to this airport.”

“Okay. What do you have up there?”

“I’ve got some vehicles
that need to be appropriated.”

“We’ll be on the way in ten.”

They signed off and Lee had those present with him get out and begin sweeping the compound on foot. The ride through had not revealed anything
, but they still proceeded with caution. They left their small convoy in the center of the small airstrip and gradually made their way between the hangars towards the other vehicles.

As they passed by a particularly large hangar, Lee noticed Deuce giving the building a wide birth, his head hung low, and his tail tucked in. He growled almost a constant stream of uncomfortable noises and kept his eyes fixed on that hangar.

Lee sniffed the air, and it may have only been his imagination, but he thought there was
a
tinge of that rank, unwashed
odor
, tainting the smell of fresh rainfall. At one point, while the others continued on, Lee hung back and inclined his ear towards the hangar, standing perhaps twenty feet from it. He could not be certain, but he thought he heard something scrape and slide against the corrugated walls of the hangar.

He did a visual check of the doors and found them padlocked.

He thought perhaps there was good reason for that, and decided not to go near it again.

***

The small white pickup truck pulled into the parking deck of the Johnston Memorial Hospital in Smithfield, and began working its way up to the top level. It drove quickly, and bore with it two
occupants and an interesting piece of cargo
.

Jacob drove, while in the passenger seat Devon sat askew in his seat, clutching a rifle and staring uncomfortably out the back glass and the blanket-wrapped and rope-tied bundle laying secure in the bed of the pickup truck. Every time it moved, whether under its own power or the movement of the truck taking the turns, Devon tensed.

They’d
restrained it with Jacob’s homemade dog-catcher’s pole and then fallen upon it with the thick blanket, terrified and hoping that its teeth would not be able to bite through. T
hen they tied it about the waist
and ankles with rope, pinning its arms to its torso and rendering it the squirming form in the back that now set Devon’s pulse racing.

When they reached the top level of the parking deck, Doc Hamilton was already exiting the stairwell doors that accessed the main wing of the hospital. He was a small-framed man in his
late
forties, with a ring of black hair growing wild around a spotlessly blank dome of scalp. He had a sort of permanently paternal expression engraved in his face, and even now it only showed concern, and perhaps a bit of confusion.

Jacob put the pickup truck in park and stepped out, immediately making his way to the truck bed. Devon followed after a moment’s hesitation and
a
pained look that spoke of his desire to be anywhere else. Doc Hamilton watched the two men go to the rear of the pickup bed and lower the tailgate, craning his neck to see what was inside.

“What
can I help you with, gentlemen?”

Inside the truck bed, the brown-bundled form suddenly thrashed and growled.

Doc Hamilton took an involuntary step back. “What the hell is that?”

Jacob looked quickly around to make sure there was no one else watching. He took three large steps and seized Doc Hamilton in a firm handshake. “I’m Doctor Jacob Weber, microbiologist with the CDC.”

Recognition showed through in Doc Hamilton’s features. “Oh, you’re the guy from Virginia.”

“Yes,” Jacob nodded curtly. “And I’m going to need a bed and as many soft restraints as you can find.”

“Uh…Okay…”

Jacob laid his hand on Doc Hamilton’s shoulder. “And Doctor…”

“Yes?”

“Do you know anything about sedation or anesthetics?”

“Not really.”

Jacob flashed a nervous smile. “I’m going to need you to learn…quickly.”

CHAPTER 23:
THE
PRISONER

Only two of the vehicles on the airstrip were out of commission: o
ne of the LMTVs would not start for some
unknown
reason, and one of the Humvees looked like it had been cannibalized for parts.
After
finding the vehicles that were in good working order
, they moved the
m over onto the tarmac and arranged them in a single-file line, so that the convoy was ready to go as soon as Harper arrived.

On the northern end of the tarmac, they located the vestiges of what looked like an ammunition drop.
T
he National Guard troops, assigned initially just to evacuate people, were ill-equipped to handle the combat they were forced into. It was likely that they had depleted their small armories in a very short amount of time
. The
ammunition drop had
probably
come out of the back of a Chinook from Fort Bragg.

They found it splayed out like the carcass of an animal
attacked by
wolves. The parachute was cut away partially, still attached by two lengths of cord, and the cargo netting that held the pallet together was flayed open like a skin. The tops of the wooden boxes were scattered about, some of them in pieces, and most of the boxes were empty. About half of the pallet bore boxes designated as 5.56mm, but the other half was .50 cal. There was not a single box of 5.56mm left, but they were able to find three untouched boxes of .50 cal
.

They took what they could get and made sure each Humvee had at least one hundred rounds in its gun.

Thirty minutes after their conversation on the radio ended, Harper and his three people showed up, crammed into an old
Toyota Camry
that putte
re
d onto the airfield.
Lee waved to them as they pulled up and extricated themselves from the car.

“You guys made good time,” Lee remarked, shaking Harper’s hand.

“I was eager to get away from Frankenstein and his creature.”

Lee half-smiled. “He’ll get good information. Maybe even something that can help us.”

Harper shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t
wanna be around the damn thing
.”

Lee
changed the subject by pointing
to the vehicles. “Right now, let’s get these things rolling towards Camp Ryder.”

“Okay.” Harper regarded the convoy stretched down the tarmac, hands on his hips. “What’s the plan?”

“Me and LaRouche will take the lead Humvee, Wilson and Lucky in the rear Humvee. Everyone else just grab a vehicle and follow the leader.” Lee shifted his feet. “Soon as we get out of this airport, I’m gonna pick up speed, and I’m not letting up until we get to Camp Ryder, so stay with me. I don’t want to get bogged down.”

Harper nodded, but looked concerned. “W
hen we get back, w
e gotta talk.”

Lee met his gaze. “Yeah
. Same here
.”

The group split up to their separate vehicles and the convoy got rolling. Lee kept his Humvee at a steady 45 miles-per-hour clip as they moved away from the airport and back onto the surface streets. The fencing and trash flowed by them in streaks without detail or texture. A small break in the clouds showed a glimpse of white, sun-brightened clouds, cresting above their dark, damp underbellies. The hole in the sky drifted with the wind, opened wider, and then eventually collapsed on itself after revealing a sliver of blue sky.

The wind was picking up, blowing the
dreary rain clouds
out, and b
ringing colder weather in behind it. Flurries of brown leaves skipped across the roadway, caught in the gusts.
Lee eyed the occasional house as they passed by. There was a quality to everything now, even in the houses that were not clearly ransacked, a grainy worn-out feeling about them. This indistinct quality to everything was as pervasive here as it was in the cities, and Lee believed probably across the entire country.
Without the people that once inhabited these areas, a wasteland was all that was left, and you could feel it like a chill in your bones.

Scavenging from these houses, Lee felt like an archaeologist, staring in wonder at the things humanity had once held dear to them. Ornate clocks and sets of fine china. Placards and degrees and trophies. The things people were most proud of,
the things displayed on mantle’s and walls,
were
now the things that were the first to be left behind.

T
hey continued down unused streets, driving through long stretches of country and short clusters of neighborhoods and intersections with old abandoned gas stations long since tapped of any fuel. At intersections they slowed just enough to make the turn, but never stopped. And if they were passing straight through the intersection, Lee didn’t even tap on the brakes.

Just before it happened, Lee
had
sunk deep into a memory, triggered by some unique and fleeting sensations, a combination of numbers on a
mental lock that opens up the
dusty safe where things long forgotten and pushed aside
are stored
.
The things locked inside
are
impressions, images and bits of time, like clips of f
ilm. S
ometimes just a feeling, or an emotion.

The trigger
is
a gust of wind
th
rough the open windows that bears
with it that musty, oaky scent so reminiscent of fall.
The cold air seeps
down past his collar
, and the smell
is
t
he smell of leaf piles on an
autumn day, and the sensation of lying there, the
chill
on his neck and on his cheeks and nose.

He is
young
in this memory, and his soul is still
light
, and the world maintains
its wonder.

His memories are the sensation of the leaves, dry on top and wet on the bottom.

The feeling, almost slick against his fingers, of cold dew clinging to old wood in the early-morning shade—a ladder of boards nailed to the side of the tree that lead
s
up to the top, and feels so incredibly high that his pulse races.