The Remaining: Refugees (32 page)

“No!” Lee put a hand on his
arm
. “Stay put!”

“What are they running from?”

“I don’t…”

Any
further w
ords were cut off
.

From a side street just behind the box truck burst three figures. None of them wore but the barest tatters of clothing and even from this distance Lee could see the lean, almost athletic musculature. Were they regular people? No…there
was no mistaking
that animal run, the sprinting form of a hunter. But it had been months since Lee had seen
an infected
that appeared so…

Well fed?

The truth
hit him like a slap in the face.

“
Holy shit
,” he said out loud.

As the running horde
of infected came abreast of
Lee, he watched
as two more of the la
rger infected loped
around the corner directly across from them, cutting off a portion of the
fleeing
horde. The horde slowed partially as they began to try to squeeze
by
.

One of the first three that had attacked from behind
, a powerful looking, dark-
skinned man with wild tangles of
black
hair down to his shoulders,
leapt straight forward and tackled a member of the horde from behind. The two of them tumbled across the asphalt, the victim lashing out like a cornered dog, biting and kicking and slash
ing viciously. B
ut the dark-
skinned infected was too large and too strong for it. It pinned its flailing prey to the ground and placed one of its massive hands on its head, and the other on its chest
,
and the muscles in its back ripple
d
as it flexed, forcing the smaller infected to expose its jugular.

The hunter opened its mouth inhumanly wide and lunged.

In one quick twisting motion, it ripped its prey’s throat out.

***

The sun was a red ball hovering just above the horizon, a retreating source of heat, taking the relative warmth of the day with it. Cold dark approached from the east, doggedly born in on gusting winds that cut right through the fabric of Harper’s jacket and made him pull the collar up over his face and swear that he would find himself a fucking pair of gloves, or convince someone to make a pair for him.

The group of twenty volunteers stood, cold and tired from a day’s worth of exercises. Beside them, just inside the Camp Ryder gate, their vehicles ticked and cooled from the drive back. The smell of cookfires surrounded them, emanating from Marie’s kitchen, and from a few others strewn about the camp.

“Alright folks,” Harper jerked a thumb toward the Camp Ryder building. “Dinner should be ready in a little bit. We’re done for the day, but we’re doing it all again tomorrow. Make sure you get some sleep.”

The group began to disperse with quiet mumbles of “catch you later” and “see you in a bit.” Harper watched them disappear into the streams of people walking about, packing everything in for the day and setting up for another cold night. He adjusted the strap of his rifle, felt the cold metal on his fingertips, and turned towards the Camp Ryder building.

De
von’s words from earlier rolled
through his head.

What was Jerry up to?

Sure, Jerry didn’t make a habit of leaving the gates—he was a bit of a pussy in Harper’s opinion—but that didn’t mean that he didn’t occasionally go out if he needed something. After all, everyone had to have something to trade nowadays. Perhaps Jerry just wanted to find himself a little creature comfort, or something he could trade up for it. Case in point, he’d gone through a lot of trouble just to get his mattress.

Harper hadn’t made a big deal about it when he spoke to the kid, because honestly he didn’t
know what to make of it
. But he thought he had better talk it over with Bus anyways. Bus would know what to do. The big guy didn’t give himself much credit for being a leader, but there was a reason that everyone in the Camp
Ryder Hub deferred to his judg
ment.

Harper made his way into the building. It was warm inside to the point of stuffiness, and crowded, which
didn’t help
. Whatever Marie was cooking had a strong, robust smell to it. For some reason, it turned his stomach. Harper smiled and nodded at the people he recognized and quickly made his way upstairs.

As he walked, he realized why the smell cloyed at the back of his throat and soured in his gut.

It smelled like chili.

He stopped, halfway up the stairs, and looked down at all the people, milling about, getting in line for food. It was noisy, and busy, and underneath the scent of the food, a million other smells wafted. He breathed shallowly, as though he might escape the smell of the chili and thought to himself that this was a strange reaction, even as
his tongue became suddenly dry
and his knees felt weak.

Screaming.

Skin parting under a blade.

Panic.

The sensation of concrete, scraping the very tip of the bayonet as he ran the kid all the way through.
The feeling in his hands of the rifle jumping as the young savage tried desperately to push the blade out of his belly. Wide, animal eyes, staring down at the mortal wound.

Screaming and blood.

“Hey!”

Harper jerked and grunted like he was being pulled back through some invisible membrane that separated the real world with the world of his memories. It had felt so real in that moment, he had the fleeting, maddening thought that everything he had experienced after that moment and up to the present had in fact been a jumble of daydreams, and that in reality he was still there, spiking a kid to the ground with the rusted blade at the end of an SKS.

“Huh?” Harper looked up the last few stairs and found Bus standing at the top, his bushy eyebrows narrowed as though he were suspicious of Harper. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” Bus asked.

Harper nodded, and felt sweat, cool and greasy, across his receding hairline. “Fine.”

Bus flicked his eyes out to the floor of the building. Then he jerked his head towards the office. “Come in and talk to me. I’ve got news.”

Bus retreated into the office without another word and Harper stamped up the last few risers, trying to shake that hollow, stretching feeling in his stomach, that sensation that had no name. Like a backlog of emotions that you just can’
t process so you leave it
in a dark corner, forgotten and spoiling as time passes
,
and you maintain your unwillingness to dissect it.
The more wretched it becomes, the more you try to ignore it.

In the office, Bus collapsed into the chair behind the desk with a great huff.

Harper stepped up to the desk, trying to discreetly wipe the sweat from his head, but Bus took notice anyway. He gave Harper that same strange look
he’d given him on the staircase.

“Everything okay with you?” he asked.

Harper nodded. “Yeah. Fine. What’s been going on with you?”

Bus shook his head. “Just the usual—every problem under the sun. Jenny’s running low on antibiotics and this flu thing going around camp is ending with half the older folks getting pneumonia. Keith Jenkins misplaced that little .22 revolver he had and now he claims someone stole it, but who knows...”

Harper raised an eyebrow. “You call me up here to talk about antibiotics and missing revolvers?”

“Just venting.” Bus sighed
and jabbed a finger at the radio.
“Captain Harden just reported in.”

Harper wiped his moist fingers off on his pants. “Is everybody okay?”

Bus stroked his beard for a moment. “As far as our people go, yes. Everything is fine.”

Harper waited for him to continue.

“In fact,” Bus continued, folding his hands on the desk. “From Captain Harden’s recon on Sanford, it sounds like they’ll be able to clear the place sooner than expected.”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Bus
didn’t look happy
. “He said there were approximately fifty infected in the horde, and no evidence of a larger group, at least on the northern side of the city. They located what they believe to be a den, but haven’t been able to get inside.”

“Only fifty?” Harper was taken aback.

Bus pointed. “Close the door.”

Harper stepped back and pushed the door closed. The rumble and scrabble of people moving and talking and laughing below them was suddenly diminished to a quiet background hum. Harper stood there, facing the door for a moment, feeling certain that he would not like what came next.

He turned back to the desk. “Where’d the others go?”

Bus looked at the map. “Eaten
, it sounds like.”

“Eaten.” Harper took a breath, still too confused to truly have a strong reaction to the news. “They’re eating each other?”

“Yes and no.” Bus met his gaze. “According to the captain, he watched the horde of fifty that had managed to break into a box truck and they were taking food stuffs. Things like canned goods. And they were taking them to the den. Then in the middle of all of this, the horde was attacked by a small group of what the captain
referred
to as ‘hunters’. He described them as slightly larger and much more aggressive than the infected in the horde. He told me that they showed no signs of malnutrition.” Bus’s nose curled in disgust. “That they appeared well-fed.”

Harper stood very still and looked straight ahead.

Bus leaned forward. “We have multiple problems here, Harper. We’ve got these infected, not only scavenging our food, but they’re showing
the intelligence to do so.”

“Frankly,” Harper swallowed against a dry throat. “I’m more concerned about the hunters.”

“Why? Let the infected eat each other. Save us all the problem of how to kill them.”

Harper finally took a seat in one of the folding chairs. “We don’t have the time to let them wipe each other out. It could take months, even years for that to happen. Besides, if they run out of other infected to hunt, who do you think they’re going to turn to? The infected are easier prey for them now because they’re undefended, and they can’t think like we can. But once that food source is gone, they’ll come after us. In the meantime, the hunters are getting stronger, and that creates a problem for me.”

Bus seemed confused. “
Which is..
.”

Harper could feel himself getting flustered, and he couldn’t quite pin-point where it was coming from. His neck felt hot and his shoulders felt tense and his face and scalp prickled. He was getting pissed, but why?

He stood up out of his seat and put both palms against his eyes and groaned. “Because they were dying, Bus! All the infected we’ve seen over the last few months have been getting skinnier, and weaker, and more sickly. It was the light at the end of the tunnel that one day after a good, long, cold winter we’d wak
e up and they’d all be gone.” His
voice hitched. He realized he was feeling the shock of crushing disappointment. Something so close to his grasp had just been ripped away. “This doesn’t mean that they’re going to wipe each other out! All it means is that they’re adapting!”