I focus back on my oatmeal. Davis nurses his coffee. Together we sit in silence.
Chapter 5
The firelight makes the soldiers look like demons—when really they’re just genetic abominations. Quiet laugher rolls through the men and women as one tells a joke. I can’t hear the words but it annoys me anyway. I’m cold, tired, and standing in wet boots. An owl hoots overhead, followed by a branch cracking. I stiffen and wait a beat, searching the shadows for movement, but none comes.
Alexandra called this ’apocalypse quiet”’where all the sounds of the mechanical world are gone and we’re left with the echoing booms of nature. It’s a mixture of pure silence plus amplified sound. Nothing makes it more noticeable than when you’re in the middle of the woods spying on a group of genetically enhanced soldiers that would just love to kill you.
“Settle down,” one of the voices says. “Let’s go over tomorrow’s assignment.”
The laughter fades instantly and there’s no sound but the snap and crackle of the campfire. All attention is on the leader. “Smith, Carson, and Miller—there’s a farm to the west. Scouts tell us there’s a large storage facility in the back. Take what you can carry.”
“Yes, sir,” they reply in unison.
There’s a pause and their leader continues, “Johnson—where are you?”
“Here, sir.” a female voice replies. She stands, her form blocking some of the fire from my view.
“There are at least ten survivors living there. Possibly more. Unvaccinated. You’ll need to take your kit and a team. Everyone over ten gets the ETV-2. The rest terminate.”
“Got it,’ she replies and then quickly adds, “Sir.”
I roll my eyes at their false efficiency. It’s easy to follow commands when you have no free will. The news about terminating children doesn’t surprise me. Chloe has no need for them which makes them expendable. She needs soldiers—nothing more, nothing less.
“The rest of us will hold the line. Our next major destination is the small town of Dublin. We’ll wait there for orders.”
This is all the information that I need but I wait a bit longer to move, even though I’d give anything to take a piss. I’m good in a fight, but going up against a whole squad is a death sentence. Something about the firelight and the shadows is playing tricks on me, and an unusual sense of paranoia inches over me.
The chatter amongst the soldiers slowly returns and I take miniscule steps away from the fire, careful not to put my full weight down. I make it to the road without incident but still can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched.
An hour later I meet up with Jude, who went to watch a second group camped in the opposite direction. He waits by an old gas station, leaning against the motorcycle he salvaged from the back of a barn about a month or so ago. While Davis grew his mustache and I cleared an island of Eaters, Jude tinkered and toiled, eventually getting the engine to run and the chrome bumper to shine. Erwin gave him access to the reserve of fuel we have at our disposal at the base. He owes us that much, otherwise our feet would be worn to nubs from walking so much.
“How’d it go?” I ask, taking off my gloves. He’s bouncing on his toes in an attempt to stay warm. Guess he’s been waiting on me for a while.
“What took you so long?”
“They were deep off the road. Took me forever to get out of the forest.”
He nods. “They’re headed south in two days—”
“Dublin. I heard.”
“Anything else?” he asks, pulling the helmet over his head. No one wants to survive the apocalypse and then die in a road crash. I tug a mud-splattered black one over my stocking-covered head.
“They’re giving the EVI-2 vaccine to some people tomorrow a couple miles away. Terminating those under ten.”
That’s all Jude needs to hear. It’s something we’ve decided together, along with other members of our original team. The kids come first even though they’re a pain to take care of. Jude gets on the bike and I sigh, regaled to the back. We’d had a fight about it in the beginning, no self-respecting man willingly rode bitch. I walked fifteen miles back to the base before he came back for me. Bitch, it is.
The engine kicks alive, shattering the apocalypse quiet. I hold on to the seat as Jude steers into the road and we’re shooting down the highway on a starless night.
With the motor buzzing in my ears and my chest vibrating with each mile, I consider how twice tonight Alexandra has been on my mind. If my math is right, it’s five times less than yesterday.
*
Behind the fortified fence line, sharp with barbs, blades, and creative alarms, the farm sprawls over many acres. The buildings are divided into two sections, operational and livestock. The smell of manure and pig present in the air. The house, Jude tells us after he gets back over the fence with only a thin scrape on his cheek, is over a hundred years old. The two-story, white clapboard home sits beneath massive, shade-providing oak trees.
“That’s where they live. My estimate is it’s an extended family, parents, kids, their kids, all living in there together.”
“Guards?” Davis asks. Our team is assembled just outside of the fence line. Jude scouted the property while we prepped by a small stream. I kneel on the dirt, arranging and checking my weapons.