James Robert Smith, page 17
As luck had it, there were three such fire towers in close proximity to Sparta. This one had needed the least amount of repair to make it safe for regular use. It even had effective lightning rods on all four corners of the cab, but the folk manning it generally retreated to the ground whenever a really bad thunderstorm approached the broad ridge of the mountain.
The two men liked their current assignment. It beat working the cornfields or hoeing potatoes or road maintenance; all jobs they’d done before volunteering for the lookout positions. Neither of the two had any formal education past high school—they’d both lost their families in the panic and riots that followed The Event. One good thing about their posting at the fire tower was that all three men had talked of their respective ordeals. Isolated as they were for days at a time, they had opened up to one another and spoken candidly about things that had lain hidden for far too long.
Gudger was scanning the northern horizon while Dawkins looked south. The entire mountaintop had been all in pasture less than three years before. But now it had begun to revert to forest. Small oaks, pines, and gum trees were poking up amidst the tall grass. If no new cattle herds were brought in, the grassy fields would be hidden beneath a young forest canopy within eight to ten years. It didn’t take long for Mother Nature to assert herself.
Occasionally, the men would spot deer or bear meandering across the open terrain. But mostly it was still, save for the movement of the grass in the passing breezes that kept the summit very pleasant on even the hottest days. Around them, they could feel just such a breeze passing over, the nearby hush of it through the hardwood forests, and the smells of summer in the forest. Life was good.
“Wonder what Adler’s going to whip us up for lunch,” Dawkins said, lowering his binoculars to look down at a small gray fox that was investigating the edge of the field below. They had seen foxes hunting in the field for mice and for grasshoppers so many times and so often that they rarely mentioned the sight of them to one another. After watching the little fox pouncing on a few insects, Dawkins turned to see why he hadn’t received a reply from Gudger.
“Look,” Gudger said. His voice was husky, as if he’d been a long-time smoker. Which was not so, as he was only twenty years old and had only smoked one cigarette in his entire life. That on a bet. The experience had so disgusted him that he’d never been able to stomach the smell of tobacco thereafter. He pointed almost directly north; his bare arm a brown arrow.
“What is that?” Dawkins asked. “Smoke?” Somewhat shorter than his companion, blonde and pale where his friend was tall and dark-skinned, he put his own binoculars to his eyes to get a good look.
“No. It’s not smoke. Smoke doesn’t change direction.”
“Change direction?”
“Yeah. I’m not shittin’ you. It was headed northeast and now it’s headed southeast.”
The two young men peered at the dark smudge that was low on the horizon, stark against the brilliant unpolluted blue of the summer dome. As they watched it through the lenses of their precious binoculars, the cloud swirled and dove and twisted, changing shape. First it was an enormous black cloud hanging low in the sky. Next it was a series of narrow tendrils dipping into the tree canopy. Then it was a cloud again, this time more dispersed and appearing as a gigantic brown smudge rather than as an ebony blot against the blue sky.
“What is it? Birds? You think it could be a flock of starlings?” Dawkins suggested. They’d seen some large flocks of the invasive birds near Sparta before.
“No, this isn’t birds. But it’s alive.”
“What then?” Dawkins asked.
“Bugs.”
“Bugs? What kind of bugs?”
“Hell if I know. Go down and get Adler. He might know what we’re looking at. And whether we should maybe do something.” Gudger lowered his binoculars and stared at the sky without the aid of the lenses. The cloud was a more frightening thing to be seen that way than magnified. As he watched, he listened to Dawkin’s soles echoing on the metal staircase as he raced down to get their older, more experienced team member.
Within just a few minutes he heard the voices of Dawkins and Adler as they began the climb up to the tower cab. Adler was asking questions of course, and the younger man was filling him in as much as he was able. When they finally arrived in the cab, coming up through the opened trap door, Gudger saw that Adler had brought the spotting scope and its little tripod with him. Initially, Adler had told him that he’d brought it for star gazing, but they’d used it from time to time to identify movements that they couldn’t detail with their binoculars.
Without further conversation, Adler set up the tough scope on the makeshift table he’d screwed into one of the cab windows. In seconds he had the metal tripod assembled and the scope attached and he was pointing it at the mysterious cloud that was still dancing and moving with a strange life in the distant sky.
Giving Adler a few minutes to adjust the eyepiece and focus, Gudger finally tired of hearing the older fellows breathing with no suggestion of information forthcoming. “What the hell is it, Adler? What do you see?”
He grunted and straightened up, putting his hands in the small of his back by way of complaint of his aching muscles. “You guys were right. It is alive and it is bugs.
“Go ahead. Take a look,” he offered, stepping away from the scope.
Gudger, the more anxious of the two younger men, bent forward to peer into the eyepiece of the spotting scope. It was still centered on the moving cloud. He focused in and was surprised that he was able to see with such clarity. While he couldn’t see the smallest of details, he was able to spot the oblong shape of insect bodies and the constant spread of beating wings. “Shit,” he said.
Stepping back, he let Dawkins have a look. Dawkins was rewarded with the same view, but he remained silent, merely watching. Finally he stood up and squinted once more at the sky, as if proving to him that the vast black cloud was still there, and was indeed what the scope was telling them it was.
“What are they?” Dawkins asked.
“I’ve seen it before,” Adler told him. “When I was a kid. It’s a swarm of hornets. Something must have stepped in a big nest of them. Some types of hornet nest near the ground, in underbrush. If something steps on or near the nest, there’s hell to pay.” Adler put his right hand over his graying brows and squinted at the cloud of insects. For just a second he had entertained the possibility that they were swarming bees, but he’d also seen that phenomenon, and this was not honeybees.
Gudger tapped Adler on the shoulder. “Don’t tell me. You stepped in a nest of them, didn’t you?” Gudger was grinning, his tanned features crinkling in a rare smile.
Adler shook his head. “Nope. It wasn’t me. It was my little brother. He stepped in the nest while we were messing around an abandoned car in the middle of an overgrown field. Stepped right on some vines and the nest was underneath. Must have been about a jillion goddamned hornets. Swarmed all over us.”
“You get stung bad?” Dawkins asked, growing tired of looking at the huge dark cloud of bugs.
“Nah. I got nailed three times, as I recall. Weird thing was that my little brother was right in the middle of them and he didn’t get stung at all. But I ran and I’m the one who got hit. The damndest thing.”
Gudger was suddenly leaning forward, his binoculars once more to his eyes.
“Son, don’t lean against the cab like that. Heights make me nervous, you know. Not for me, but I’d hate to see you lose your balance and go through the window there. It’s pretty low, you know.” Alder had his hand on the youngster’s shoulder, applying just a little pressure to pull him back.
“It just occurred to me. What you just said and all.”
“What’s that?” asked Adler.
“Well, something stirred up that nest. I suppose we should scout over there and see what it was.” He lowered the binoculars. “I don’t see anything, but the hornets still seem stirred up, so whatever it was it’s probably still moving around over there.”
“Could be a fox,” Dawkins offered. “I saw one this morning. Just to the east. Catching grasshoppers.”
“It could be anything,” Gudger said. “Could be a fox, a raccoon, possum, deer, bear…” His voice trailed off.
“Zombie,” Adler finished the thought for him. He’d found that young people had a harder time mentioning the damned things than the older folk. He wasn’t quite sure why that was. Maybe it had something to do with the nature of losing your parents rather than losing your mate and children. Damned if he knew, but it was something he’d been meaning to talk over with someone like Dr. Schiff. If nothing else, it would be interesting conversation.
“Yeah, I suppose it could,” Gudger admitted. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen any around here.”
“One turned up recently in Sparta,” Adler told him.
“No shit? Somebody die without a buddy around?” Dawkins asked, and he was one who generally seemed especially squeamish when it came to discussion of the risen dead.
“No, not that. We haven’t had that happen in a very long time,” Adler was happy to say. “This was one that was down below Sparta to the east.
“Was it walking uphill? Shit. I’ve never seen one do that. I mean…not for miles. There’s nothing for miles below Sparta. It would have had to climb an awful long way to get to Sparta.
“Yes, it would. I guess we should get down to the cabin and armor up. Go see what stirred those hornets.”
And, at that, the trio descended the tower stairs—Alder far more carefully than the others—to go into the small cabin to don their makeshift suits of leather and bamboo, to guard against human bites.
***
Sometimes Adler felt guilty about his armor. It was top of the line police issue material. But he’d come by it fairly and had occasion to loan it out. And it had saved his neck a number of times, so he did his best not to feel too much the privileged man when he had it on around folk who worked with less. It was just the luck of the draw, the way he saw it.
In contrast, Gudger’s scouting armor was more of leather and thick muslin than anything artificial. It did the job and no one had ever heard the man complain about it. Dawkin’s outfit, also, was handmade. But he’d had help with it and it used both leather and bamboo slats to protect the areas where people were most likely to get bitten—the hands, forearms, shoulders, thighs.
Just now they were a classic Spartan team. The buddy system was best in threes. Two could carry one if there was an injury and retreat was called for. Three sets of eyes were better than two. It was hard to outflank a gang of three with one taking point and two parallel at a distance behind the point man; classic spearhead, if reduced to its lowest denominator.
In the lead, Adler was armed with a twelve-gauge pump action shotgun. Loaded with double-ought buckshot. Almost everyone preferred a shotgun if he had the choice. This was Adler’s personal weapon—he’d owned it since well before The Event. In addition, he was quite good at using it. Unlike so many other citizens of Sparta, he’d been an avid hunter before his arrival there. It was second nature to him. He was very careful with his weapon, and he’d never had an accident with it. For that reason, other people enjoyed being linked with him when it came time for patrol duty.
They had left the grassy field behind them and had entered the forest. Around the edges, the trees were mainly white pines; but farther back those gave way to red oaks, post oaks, white oaks, sweet gum, and sourwood trees. For days the group had noticed the great number of honeybees swarming around the sourwoods and Adler had told the others that if they could locate the hive, they could harvest the best honey there was—sourwood honey. “Nothin’ better than sourwood honey,” Adler had told them, licking his lips at the thought.
So far, they’d not located the hive, but that wasn’t something that concerned them just now. Whatever had stirred up that gigantic swarm of hornets was foremost in their minds. It might be nothing, or it might indicate danger. They needed to know.
Behind him, Gudger and Dawkins were spread out roughly fifty feet back and an equal distance to his right and left. Both were armed with .357 handguns and bludgeons. And both were adept in the use of both types of weapons. Roland Thompson had trained them—in Gudger’s case, he’d come up the mountain with Thompson’s large group the year before. Just watching Thompson in action had been enough of an education for him. Gudger was a really fine kid, Adler figured, and was going to make some girl a good husband. Dawkins, too, for that matter. But Gudger was especially tough.
Soon, they were deep in the forest. It had become noticeably cooler there in the shadows beneath the forest canopy. Although they were better than 4,000 feet above sea level and in the midst of rolling waves of mountains, one would never have known it. For the forests were so lush and so green that there were no views to be had of the surrounding high country. Around them, there was only forest stretching on and on.
Adler halted and motioned for the other two to join him. Peering all around, he scanned for any movement, any sign of danger. Leaning against the pale trunk of a tall tulip poplar, he took his helmet off and let the sweat dry on his face. His companions were soon with him, kneeling in the forest loam, taking stock of the woods.
“How far you figure we are from where you first saw that cloud of hornets?”
“We’re pretty close,” Gudger told him.
“Yeah. Maybe a hundred yards or so,” Dawkins added. “We should watch for it really close, now. Wherever it is, it’s got to be one mother-of-all hornets nest.”
“You’ve got that right,” Adler agreed. He put his helmet back on his head and they pushed into the forest.
A few minutes later, Adler was the first one to see what had stirred up the nest. Thinking about it later, he was especially glad to have been leading point that day.
The first thing he heard was the light snapping of twigs underfoot. But not under his feet. The sound came from just ahead of him and he looked to see a figure staggering out of the cover of a mass of rhododendron and doghobble. True to its name and its nature, the doghobble was doing its best to trip the form coming toward him. Adler had his shotgun to his shoulder and was ready to fire when he took a look at the thing’s face.
Its head was swollen. So swollen that the eyes were completely shut. Even the nostrils were little more than openings in discolored flesh.
He’d never seen zombie flesh respond to anything toxic. Not poison and certainly not insect venom. Adler took his finger off the trigger. “Hello?” He addressed the thing that even then was stumbling directly toward him. Sometimes, they came right at you even if they had no eyes. He’d seen it before, and it had been said that some of them smelled the living. Adler did believe that, although whether it was warm flesh they smelled or carbon dioxide, he couldn’t say. But they did seem to know where you were, even if you were hiding out of sight.
There was no immediate response and his finger had crept back onto the trigger. He was all but ready to pull that trigger when he finally heard something. It was a whimper. But not from the one walking toward him. Peering behind it, he saw two small children crawling out of the brush, similarly stung (although not so severely) and crying. “Mommy,” one of them said. “Mommy, wait for us.”
Adler immediately put his weapon on the ground and ran to the first figure. It was a woman and as he took her in his arms, she completely collapsed. He could see the tears creeping out of the corners of her eyes. “Help us,” she managed to croak. “Please help my children.”
“Yes,” Adler told her. “You’ll be okay. We’ll help you.” And he barely noticed Dawkins and Gudger racing past him to lift up the crawling children into their young arms.
***
In the background there was the muted putt-putt-putt of the 2000-watt generator. Located in the makeshift shed attached to the small cabin, one could barely hear it when the shed door was tightly shut, as it was now. In addition, Adler had suggested that Dawkins fire up the little alcohol stove to heat up a pot of stew leftover from the night before. The cabin was filling quickly with the good smell of soup stock, chicken, and vegetables.
The three victims of the hornet’s nest were all in the cabin, occupying the cots that the three lookouts used when the tower was manned. From what little they had so far learned, the woman was the mother of the two children, both girls. Adler figured the children were between eight and ten years old, but as emaciated as they were, it was hard to tell. In fact, even the woman was wasted away to the point of near-starvation.
“What did Dr. Wein say?” Adler asked Gudger who had just signed off and was shutting the radio down. Dawkins had scooted out of the cabin to reopen the shed and turn off the generator. They only had about ten gallons of gasoline for it, and they husbanded that resource very carefully. But they had needed a clear signal, and powering up the generator was the best way to ensure that.
“He’s coming out himself. They’re on the run, so they should be here in half an hour. Maybe an hour.”
“I think the kids will make it until then. I’m not so sure about the woman.” He whispered this to Gudger, for he wasn’t sure if the patients were listening, or were even capable of listening. But he didn’t want to exacerbate their condition by saying something so stony.
They had stripped the ragged clothing off of all three and, as Wein had instructed them, had rubbed them all down with cool water and applied an antihistamine cream onto as many of the sting sites as possible. They’d quickly run out of the stuff—a precious three tubes that had been given to them when they’d headed out of Sparta. Dr. Wein had told them to use it on the individuals most likely to survive, but Adler and the others had been unable to make themselves do that. So they’d spread the stuff on as liberally and as democratically as they could. Triage was not something of which they were capable under the circumstances. Dawkins had spent the past half hour either near to tears or audibly sobbing as he administered to the three sting victims.
