Then Devon's eyes drifted down to the far end of the building, where the other man stood, rifle trained on something Lee could not see. Lee lowered his head, his face becoming set in stone. He walked through the building, pa.s.sing through the shadows of the support beams that held the roof up. He reached the door and stood there stiffly, looking in.

Jerry was still alive. Skin pale like the underbelly of a fish. His profuse sweat made it appear just as slick and slimy. He leaned on a collection of five gallon buckets of food supplies that Lee had brought from one of his bunkers-rice, oats, beans. He had one arm jacked up over them, his head lolled off to the side, displaying a metal rod of some sort sticking out of his neck, blood oozing from the wound at a slow trickle.

Jerry stirred a bit, eyes widening as he saw Lee. He groaned, made a strange noise that vibrated oddly through his throat and came out as an unp.r.o.nounced mewling sound. Fear. The desire to self-preserve. Jerry kicked with his feet like he was trying to get away, but he was weak. It seemed that Lee's mere presence brought Jerry to the point of anxiety, as he mindlessly tried to back away from Lee, though there was nowhere else to go inside the tiny room, crammed in with all the buckets that Lee had given to Camp Ryder.

Lee turned to the man at the door. "Thank you. I'll handle this."

The man looked slightly confused, but then Lee stepped into the room, and he closed the door behind him. The man stared at the door, then looked up at Devon and Tomlin. Devon's expression was something of fascination. Like a kid who wants to go poke at the roadkill. Tomlin's was more reserved and he met the man's gaze and simply shrugged.

Inside the room it was dark.

The doorway was just a bar of silver light along the floor. It took a few moments for Lee's eyes to adjust, but then he could at least see the outline of Jerry's body. The glint of the little metal object in his neck. Lee wondered what it was. Couldn't quite tell.

He shuffled forward, his feet nudging up against Jerry's legs and he knelt down, hissing a bit as his side inflamed him again, punishing him for such movements. When he was settled on his haunches, he folded his hands and looked at Jerry. He couldn't see much of his face in the darkness. Just a little bit of the light reflecting off his eyes. Off the wetness of his sweat as it pooled with the blood around his neck.

He reached forward, gently touched the object.

Jerry recoiled, gasping.

"Who did this to you, Jerry?"

The sound of Jerry's mouth working. A wet, clicking noise. A gargled whisper: "Angela."

Lee smiled, though he doubted Jerry could see it. That was fine. He didn't smile to poke at Jerry. He simply smiled. Something like pride. "She's strong, Jerry. Did you mistake her for something else?"

No response.

Then: "Help me."

Lee stared through the dark, thought he saw the glistening of tears in Jerry's eyes.

"Help me!" Jerry wheezed with a little more force.

No loose ends.

"No, Jerry," Lee said softly. "We're all just...done with you."

Then, with nothing further to say, Lee simply reached forward and plucked the metal rod from Jerry's neck. Lee felt the blood spurt out and he stood up, taking a step back. On the ground, Jerry began to thrash. His hands went to his neck, trying to keep the blood in. He tried to speak, but the blood from his clipped artery, the blood that had been mostly sealed by the metal rod, started pouring into the hole in his larynx, filling his throat with blood. He coughed violently, kept trying to take a breath, but every time he breathed he just sucked more blood into his lungs. He kept stubbornly coughing and taking gulps of air. He went on like this for almost a minute.

Eventually he drowned in his own blood.

Lee waited for absolute silence in the small, dark room. He waited for the last bit of air to bubble out of Jerry. Waited for the man's foot to stop tapping against the buckets-the last involuntary twitches. He waited until it seemed he floated in a vacuum. Then he dropped the metal object-a tire pressure gauge?-and listened to it clank lightly on the ground.

He turned and opened the door. Light poured in. Bathed him.

He stepped out of the room, leaving Jerry behind.

CHAPTER 43: REPENTANCE.

Harper and Julia crouched atop a water tower, facing north across the Dan River. Same thing as the Roanoke, just a different section of it. On the other side of the slow-moving, brown water stood Eden. Small town. A lot of neighborhoods, it looked like. The downtown area bisected into east and west sections by an offshoot of the Dan River.

Smith River, according to the map.

Harper leaned on the rusted railing, chin resting on his arms, looking out at the little city ahead of them. Beside him, Julia had her rifle up and was squinting through the scope. She'd been surveying the city for the last ten minutes. Taking it slow and steady. Every so often she would shift to another section of the city, and she would watch that for a minute or two. A cross section of what was going on in Eden, NC.

Harper rubbed his bearded chin against his arm to itch it, eyed his companion. "What's it looking like?"

Julia pulled her head back from her rifle, eyes still looking out at the town. She had a look on her face: lips pursed off to one side, eyebrows slightly cinched, eyes closed down to little concentrated slits. She slid the rifle across the rail towards Harper. "Here. Take a look."

He accepted the rifle, settled down over it and trained the scope.

A few minutes pa.s.sed.

Julia picked at the peeling bluish-green paint of the water tower. It came off in big chunks, revealing dark, rusty metal underneath. The whole structure creaked and groaned every time the wind blew. Vibrated unnervingly beneath them like it might give way at any second. Who knew how old the d.a.m.n thing was, or how long it had been since it was last inspected? But Harper supposed they constructed these things to last for quite a while.

Besides, there were bigger worries than structurally unsound water towers.

Harper lowered the rifle, glared at Eden as though it had betrayed him. "s.h.i.tfire," he mumbled, then pa.s.sed the rifle back.

"Hey! Harper! Julia!" A voice yelled up at them from below.

They both leaned over the edge and saw one of the team standing at the ladder, banging on it with his hands, sending little reverberations all the way up to them.

"What?" Harper snapped.

"You gotta get down here quick!"

Julia and Harper both swore in unison and clambered to their feet, brushing particles of rust and ancient paint from their legs. They swung quickly over the rail and onto the ladder. Harper made it a point not to look down. The ladder swayed under the weight of both bodies and Harper felt a little sick for a moment but he just kept working his way down-the faster he got his feet on the ground the better.

It took a minute to descend the tower, but his feet had only just hit the ground before he felt a hand grab his jacket. He whirled, about ready to start swinging, from pure irritation if not for self-defense, but found himself staring at a grin.

A f.u.c.king grin.

Not an expression you saw very often. The man who wore it waved excitedly.

Harper almost wanted to punch the teeth out. What could be so f.u.c.king amazing that this idiot was grinning? He worded it only slightly nicer: "What the f.u.c.k are you grinning about?"

"We're getting transmissions on the radio!" he almost shouted. "From Camp Ryder!"

Harper looked at Julia. A moment's hesitation pa.s.sing between them, the cringing feeling of a pessimist-It's gotta be a mistake. But then Julia ran for the Humvees, her eyes suddenly alight with a guarded excitement. So Harper followed her.

They ran up to the first Humvee, ripping open the door.

A sweet sound came pouring out of the vehicle. The static hiss of the radio, and the crackled sound of a transmitted voice nearly toppled Harper over right then and there. Nearly brought him to his knees. "Camp Ryder to LaRouche or Harper or anyone in their groups. Camp Ryder to LaRouche or Harper. Please answer."

The man that had called them couldn't seem to keep his feet from moving. "I didn't know if you wanted me to answer or not! Should we answer? Should we answer it?"

Harper reached into the Humvee and s.n.a.t.c.hed the handset, keying it before he'd even brought it to his mouth. Unbeknownst to him, he wore the same stupid grin across his face now, because he knew the voice on the other end of the line.

"Lee?" he almost shouted. "Is that you?"

Lee felt an astounding sense of relief, and couldn't help but close his eyes and smile, the handset held against his head. "Yeah, it's me, Harper."

There was a crackle, then a barrage.

"Lee! We've been tryin' to get a hold of you guys for the past three f.u.c.kin' days! What the h.e.l.l happened over there? Did you guys have some technical difficulties or something? Jesus...do you have Devon and Nate with you? We sent them your way to try to make contact when we couldn't get anything via radio. Is everything alright?"

Lee looked down. He was seated on the edge of the desk in the Camp Ryder office, wearing only his filthy pants and boots. His body was p.r.i.c.kled with gooseflesh in the cold room, but Angela was still working on cleaning and bandaging his side.

He keyed the mic. "It's a long story, Harper. Devon and Nate are with me and they're fine. I'll explain everything to you soon, but there's a lot going on right now. A lot we're trying to coordinate. I need a sit-rep so we can figure out what the f.u.c.k we're doing."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

Crackle. "Lee...we've, uh...we've taken some losses. We're down three-Gray got killed, and..." another long pause. The transmission clicked off. Came back a few seconds later. "And Torri and Mike, too. They got killed. And we sent Nate and Devon down there to check on you guys, so we're pretty much a skeleton crew right now. We need people, Lee. Bad."

Lee tapped the handset against his forehead, trying to ignore the pain of Angela threading a needle through his skin. He weighed his words carefully. There was a fine line between disseminating necessary information, and being a morale crusher. And it sounded like there wasn't much left to Harper's morale as it was. "Buddy, I'm sorry to hear that. We've all taken some losses over the last few days, okay? But we're making it right. We'll be sending Devon and Nate back up your way with reinforcements." He almost added supplies but stopped himself. Because he didn't have any supplies to give away. "What's your location right now and can you hold it for the next forty-eight hours?"

"We're, uh...just outside of Eden. I think we're in an okay spot."

"Can you hold it for forty-eight hours?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"Have you had a chance to scout out Eden?"

"Just got done with that."

"What's it look like?"

"It's not good, Lee. I think we might be a little late to the party on this one. The place is f.u.c.king swarming with 'em. All on the east side of the river, though."

Lee swore, then keyed up. "You got an estimate?"

"Lee, all I can tell you is that Jacob was right. He was one-hundred-percent f.u.c.king right."

Lee grit his teeth. "Ball park it for me, Harper."

"Several thousand. At least. And that's just what we can see. Lee, they're everywhere on the eastern side of the town. And I don't know how long it's gonna take them to cross over."

"How many bridges?"

"Five road crossings and one railroad."

Lee rubbed his beard nervously, looked over at Tomlin. He raised his eyebrows in question.

"We're gonna need a lot of manpower to blow those bridges," Tomlin said, thoughtfully. "And we're gonna need them there quickly to get it before they start crossing into the western section of town. Plus we're gonna need manpower to secure the demolition crews while they work. You back a couple trucks up onto those bridges, the infected are gonna hear it and come running. Then you have to fight and place charges at the same time?" Tomlin rubbed his eyes. "c.r.a.p shoot. f.u.c.king c.r.a.p shoot."

Lee keyed the radio. "Harper, I want your honest, real-time, battlefield a.s.sessment. Do you think we can make a stand in Eden or do we need to pull back and focus somewhere else?"

Lee expected a long wait while Harper mulled the question over, perhaps talked it out with a few of his teammates. But instead, the radio clicked back almost the second Lee released his transmit b.u.t.ton. Only it wasn't Harper's voice on the radio.

"Hey! Wilson to Camp Ryder! Can I get a word in here?"

Lee stared at the radio. "Wilson? Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

"I been trying to transmit, but ya'll keep hoggin' the air time." There was a bit of hesitation in his voice. "Cap, I'm gonna come right out with it. I'm on the radio because LaRouche is MIA."

Lee shook his head. "MIA? You mean MIA like he's taking a s.h.i.t? Or MIA as in you don't know where the f.u.c.k he is?"

"Captain, I'm sorry, he disappeared last night." A breath. "He, uh...well...I don't know."

Lee swore under his breath. Held the handset in front of him and looked at it. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, tapping the handset on his forehead. Missing? Did that mean that he wasn't dead? Did he just get lost in the middle of the night? Did something s.n.a.t.c.h him and drag him away without anybody seeing? Maybe it was the way Wilson had said it, but Lee felt like there was more to it than that.

"Captain," Wilson continued. "I think we might be able to help with the problem at Eden."

Lee forced himself to focus. He opened his eyes and keyed the handset. "Okay, Wilson. Talk to me."

"We're at the Highway 51 bridge over Roanoke River," Wilson said. "I got someone with me that you need to speak to."

Lee's head felt sullied. "Okay. Go ahead."

There was a click, a rustle, then silence. Then another transmission.

A different voice. Middle-aged. Soft-spoken. Midwestern accent. "Is this Captain Harden?"

"It is." Lee frowned. "Who am I speaking with?"

"This is Colonel J. F. Staley, 6th Marine Regiment," the voice stated in its mellow tone. "Good to know we have some friends still alive out there, Captain."

LaRouche was led blindfolded down a dirt road. That was all he could really tell of the place. He could still see just a small sliver of the world out of the bottom of his blindfold and he could see the hard-packed macadam of an old, unpaved road under his feet. He listened to the world around him and he could hear it bustling. There was the sound of trucks rumbling back and forth, the sound of people talking. Even the sound of goats and chickens-the smell of them too.

There were trees, he thought. Their dappled shade splashing across his vision every once in a while. Plus the scent of the woods-bark, rotting leaves, composted soil under decades of natural mulch. He knew the scent well. He'd spent plenty of time in the woods as a child.

He could feel the well-spoken man's hand on his shoulder. During the drive over, LaRouche had not spoken a word, nor had his captors asked any questions. However, they did converse amongst themselves and LaRouche had discovered that the man who now walked with him, who sounded strangely like he had an Ivy League degree, went by Clyde.

Darren driving.

Clyde behind him, with a gun to the back of his neck.