Aftermath (16 page)

He tucked the loose end in snugly. “Thanks.”

With the flag folded properly, Lee took it back to the pickup truck.

Climbing back into his seat, Harper regarded him with a curious smile. “A little something to remember America by?”

The looked that Harper received in return was sharp, but Lee spoke evenly. “The United States is an idea, Harper. The best one we’ve ever had.” He looked down at the folded flag in his lap. “The only way to destroy an idea is to kill everyone that believes in it. And I’m not dead yet.”

Harper didn’t respond, because he had nothing to say.

Miller finished siphoning the gas tank, which yielded a full five gallon gas can and brought them into their twelve-gallon comfort zone with a little extra to spare. He put the gas in the tank, and the can and tube in the bed. Josh hopped out, and Miller took his place, and the group was on their way again.

CHAPTER 10: BEANS AND BULLETS

As I-95 faded in the distance, Lee finally pulled the GPS unit out of the cargo pocket of his pants. It was a
thick
handheld device, built specially for the Coordinators stationed in each of the lower 48 states. They all had access to a series of supply bunkers, the number depending on the populace of the state they were in. The GPS unit was designed to help the Coordinators keep those bunkers all to themselves.

Only the Coordinator to which that device was assigned could access the GPS unit, and therein the location of his bunkers. There was much discussion during the planning stages of Project Hometown about whether or not to allow all of the Coordinators to access all of the bunkers. The argument that ended the debate was a simple observation: If they all had access to all the bunkers, it would only take one coordinator to be captured and tortured and turned to destroy the entire mission. In the end it was decided that they wouldn’t place all their eggs in one basket, so to speak.

The unit was a black box with a five-inch screen. Below the screen was a small, glossy black square, which Lee placed his thumb on. The little square depressed slightly when he applied pressure, activating the thumb scanner. It took the device a moment to verify his print and also checked for the presence of a pulse, so interested parties could not access the device simply because they possessed Lee’s thumbs.

Oh, military industry, you’ve thought of everything.

The screen lit up into a
ten-by-ten grid
, each square containing a letter and a number. The grid was randomized each time the thumbprint was verified, so the same grid never came up twice, keeping prying eyes from copying Lee’s code simply by pattern memorization. Lee carefully tapped out the appropriate alphanumerics.

The screen changed and displayed ten options: Bunker #1; Bunker #2; and so on to Bunker #10. He selected Bunker #4 and the screen changed once again to a topographical map of the area. At the very borders of the screen, Lee could see the framework of the triangle created by I-95, I-795, and I-40. A small red arrow was in the center of that frame, pointing southeast. A short distance from that red arrow, was a blue dot.

“
Gettin’ close,” Lee raised his head and watched the road roll slowly by them.

They had not come across any roadblocks since passing over I-95, which was a stroke of good luck and would hopefully have them in the bunker before dark. Now the sun was dipping down closer to the horizon, just beginning to lick at the tree-tops. They had perhaps an hour before it was dark.

Lee instructed Harper to slow down a bit so that they did not miss their turn. After another long mile cruising at about
thirty miles-per-hour
, Lee found what he was looking for and waved at Harper to stop. To their right, a narrow gravel road led away from the blacktop. The front was barred by a plain red gate with a big padlocked chain wrapped around it. The whole ensemble was very low key.

When Project Hometown was in its planning stages, it was decided that a simple, nondescript gate would probably keep more people out than a
ten
-foot
-
high fence marked “GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.” The thinking was that, in an event of social and governmental collapse, people would seek out abandoned government
facilities
, believing that food and water and medical supplies would be more easily found in these places. With no personnel available to guard the gate, people might find something marked as government property more attractive.

The pickup truck pulled into the mouth of the dirt road and Lee hopped out. He carried no keys, but approached the padlock with purpose. Though the large padlock looked like just another piece of rusty metal, Lee placed his GPS device against it and it popped open with a tiny whir of electronic servos. Lee pocketed the GPS and pulled the big lock off, letting the chain fall with a metallic rasp. He swung the gate open and began walking back towards the truck.

And that was where he stopped.

Everyone in the truck stiffened when they saw him freeze.

He turned his face into the breeze and lifted his nose, taking a few quick sniffs. Then he looked back to where the dirt road disappeared into the trees. There was a distinct smell coming from the direction of his bunker, a pungent odor Lee had not smelled in a long time. It was a nauseously sweet smell that set his hairs to standing on end and his stomach to churning. It was the smell of burning hair mixed with charred meat.

He looked through the passenger side window at Harper. “You smell that?”

Harper’s nose wrinkled slightly and he nodded.

Lee swore quietly to himself, then stared off into the woods for a moment. When he looked back, that hard edge had set on his face again. “I don’t know who’s burning bodies over there, but we need to approach cautiously. We gotta go in on foot.”

The other four men did not appear thrilled, but kept their opinions to themselves.

Lee quickly scouted far enough out that they could pull the pickup truck out of sight of the roadway. He re-chained and locked the fence, then jogged back to the four men who now stood at the tailgate, looking
nervous
and gripping their rifles like talismans to ward off evil. They were all thinking about the roadblock.

Josh in particular looked pale, and an unhealthy sweat had broken out on his face.

Lee approached him and put a hand on the back of his neck. “You gotta buck up, Josh.”

“
I don’t wanna kill any normal people,” he mumbled to the ground.

“
Well, that ain’t up to you.” Lee shook him. “If things go down, you gotta do what has to be done to stay alive, you hear me?”

Josh nodded.

“
You guys remember tactical spacing?”

There was a chorus of “Uh-huh’s.”

“
That’s what I want. I’m gonna be point and take you guys through the woods. You all stack up behind Harper.” He looked at the older man. “Harper, just keep me in sight. You don’t have to be up on my ass, you just gotta be able to see me. And if I start shooting, you all hit the ground and don’t engage until I tell you to, understand?”

“
Got it.”

“
Alright,” Lee had traded the Savage .308 for one an SKS. He put a palm to the base of the magazine and then pulled the chambering lever back an inch to make sure there was a live cartridge in the chamber. The other four men followed suit.

Five rifle bolts snicked into place.

Locked and loaded.

He jogged out ahead of them and then dipped into the woods. Behind him, he could hear the soft movement of his companions taking to the forest. They moved well for civilians, but noise discipline and woodland movement were not just for tactical teams and hunters anymore. Everyone had to learn how to survive, and those that didn’t, didn’t.

He ducked under the arms of trees and slipped quietly over logs. He kept his profile low and small; bent at the waist, with his head down. His feet moved deftly, choosing the softest ground that would hide the sound of his approach. His eyes scanned up and down, deciding which path to take through the woods, and then looking ahead for threats. He listened carefully for anything out of the ordinary.

The smell of burning flesh became stronger, though it still only came in jarring whiffs. Just when he would begin to think he had lost the scent, it would roll across on the wind and slap him in the face again. Every time he smelled it, he felt that dull ache behind his eyes and his stomach felt weak. The smell had always given him headaches
and made him nauseous
.

As Lee approached the clearing where his bunker was buried deep in the earth, he saw the flickering flames and stopped, taking a knee. Behind him the constant soft rustle of the other four ceased.

Ahead and in the clearing, Lee could make out three tents. Two of them were factory made dome-tents that you could find in any sporting goods store, and the third was a crude construction of rope and tarp, but was the biggest of the three. The tents formed a loose
“
V
”
shape around a burning jumble of sticks and dry branches with flames glowing deep inside and licking out at the air. Protruding from the fire, Lee could see the charred claw of a human hand. A foot jutted up stiff and erect like a piece of a manequinn, smoke curling off the flaking skin. Lee couldn’t see any other body parts, but due to the size of the fire, he suspected more than one body was burning.

A middle aged man with short brown hair and thick glasses stood at the edge of the fire, leaning on a shovel and staring vacantly into the flames. He wore dockers that Lee imagined had once been clean and pressed, but were now a wrinkly, sooty mess. Tucked into those dockers was a short-sleeve button up shirt that was in about the same condition as the pants. The man’s face was naturally lean but sported a good growth of beard. Lee thought he looked like a straight-laced kind of person, or at least he might have been before all of this. He looked like he might have been an accountant, or a bank teller. Something boring. The kind of guy that ate plain oatmeal for breakfast along with his black coffee. The kind of guy that never drank more than three beers
at a time.

Lee looked past this strange character and could see movement in the large tent made of rope and tarp, though he could not count how many others were there. Beyond the tents, Lee could see the hulk of his bunker’s door, jutting up out of the earth like a half-buried monolith. It was still locked and
secured. It did not appear that the straight-laced man or any of his friends had gotten inside.

Lee s
l
unk quietly back into the woods.

He found the others still kneeling down a few yards back. They stared expectantly at Lee as he sidled up to them. They bombarded him with hushed questions.

“
Is there someone there?”

“
Are they dangerous?”

“
What do you want us to do?”

Lee shook his head. “I don’t know if they’re hostile yet.”

Harper grit his teeth. “Like we didn’t know if the people at the roadblock were hostile?”

“
What do you propose?” Lee turned a flinty glare on him.

“
I say we just take them out,” Miller mumbled.

Josh looked squeamish.

Lee poked a finger in Miller’s chest. “We can’t just take them out, Miller! They could be survivors!”

“
Or,” Harper hissed. “They could be fucking assholes like the roadblock.”

“
Fine.” Lee wiped sweat from his eyes. “You guys take positions at the woodline. I will approach with no weapon and my hands up. I will try to feel them out. If things go bad, I’m just gonna drop to the ground and you guys hose ‘em.”

Everyone looked grim. But it was the best plan they had.

It was the
only
plan they had.

“
Here,” Lee offered his SKS to Doc. “If trouble starts, this will give you a little more bang for your buck.”

Doc looked up at him and Lee could see a level of resentment that he wasn’t sure he had done anything to deserve. But it was there nonetheless. Doc snatched the rifle up. “Does it get easy?”

“
What?” Lee’s face tightened.

“
Killing people. Does it get easy for you?”

Lee just stared at him. He didn’t glare, he didn’t sneer. His gaze was even and blank, because behind his eyes he was actually considering the question. Though Doc had clearly meant it as a jab, Lee shrugged off the childish insult. Like so many others before him, Doc relied on tougher men than himself to stay safe, and when forced to raise his hand to protect himself or those around him, he resented those men for not being able to solve all of his problems.

“
Yes,” Lee stated
truthfully
. “It does get easier.”

The party broke. Harper took the center with Doc, while Miller and Josh split out to the left and right. Lee gave them a brief moment, and then began to follow. They moved into position as though they’d drilled on it a thousand times and Lee had to admit, he felt a faint level of pride in them. If they could accomplish this after a few hours of practice, imagine what a few months of drills would do for them?