Southlands Read online

  He was harder inside.

  Quicker to anger.

  Quicker to violence.

  About the only time she saw him genuinely smile anymore was when he was talking about these plans for the future. How he was going to start a training cadre, and it was going to have Abe and Julia in it, and they were going to be able to stop running operations non-stop, and actually, for the first time since the collapse of the old world, breathe.

  It was a wonderful daydream. But Julia didn’t like to harbor it for long.

  Lying on a forest floor somewhere in Texas, preparing to ambush a convoy of tanker trucks, it felt like such things were too far in the future to be real.

  But maybe one day…

  The radioman lounging next to Menendez perked up and leaned forward, listening to his radio. Then he tapped Menendez on the shoulder. “Willie’s got route clearance rolling through now. One mike out.”

  “Roger,” Menendez nodded. He keyed his own comms, transmitting to this squad, and the squad across the way. “Bigfoot Actual to my homies in the barrio, standby for route clearance to come through.” He flashed a wide smile at her as he released his PTT. “I just say that shit to piss off all these racist-ass gringos I gotta work with.”

  The radioman shook his head. “Can’t believe I gotta answer to a fuckin’ beaner.”

  Menendez chuckled as he got to his feet. “What’s the world comin’ to, right?”

  Julia picked her helmet up from the ground next to her and buckled it onto her head. The nerves hit her, sudden and hard, and her fingers trembled with the chinstrap. For the third or fourth time that day, she wondered why the hell she’d volunteered for this.

  Because this is your job.

  Keep people alive.

  Menendez hunched down towards his soldiers, but then stopped and looked back at Julia, putting his own helmet on as he did. “Stay back there until we need you, okay?”

  Julia nodded in response and decided to slip around to the back of the thick pine she was leaning against. It wasn’t a lot of cover, but it was better than nothing. She went prone behind it. Her heavy medical pack sat on her back and felt almost comforting there.

  Menendez and his radioman shuffled over to the front line. Peered down the road.

  “Eyes on,” Menendez said, looking south. “Everyone standby.”

  The radioman spoke again: “Willie’s got the convoy in sight now. Five tankers.”

  From behind her tree, Julia watched Menendez go prone behind his machine gunner with the M2. The radioman laid down next to him, almost hip-to-hip.

  No one spoke anymore. Everyone was still and tense.

  Somewhere in the woods near them a bird chirped and beat its wings through the branches.

  Julia focused on her breathing. Steadying her pounding heart. She thought about wounds. And where everything was in her bag. She imagined Menendez with a hole in his chest, and where her chest seals were. Then she imagined him with a blown artery, and visualized herself applying tourniquets, or hemostats, as was needed. She imagined him with his brains hanging out of his skull, and her triaging him and making the call that he couldn’t be saved, and moving on to the next person that needed her.

  These visualizations didn’t amp her up. They brought out the cold clinician in her. They turned human beings into broken machines. It helped her stay calm.

  The sound of engines reached her. Faint at first, and then growing.

  Another twenty seconds.

  The roar of the engines surrounded her.

  Out on the interstate, two MATVs roared past.

  She saw them in a flash, through the trees ahead of her, and then they were gone, and the noise of their engines faded.

  That was the route clearance. They paved the way about a mile or so ahead of the actual convoy, probing the route for ambushes.

  It was a good tactic. Unless the people ambushing knew that there was route clearance, and let them pass by so that the real targets could come along.

  “Bigfoot Actual to Mikey,” Menendez transmitted. “Start rolling now. Everyone else, standby. You know what to do.”

  Julia stayed flat on her belly. She felt the hollow queasiness overtake her. The same as it always was when she was waiting to see how much she would have to fight death, and whether or not death would come to her.

  Just as the sound of the two route clearance MATVs faded almost to nothing, a new roar of engines began to build. This one deeper. Throatier.

  Everyone waited.

  The climbing noise of the approaching convoy seemed to fill the air around them, although she knew it came from her left—from the south. And then, just as she caught the first flash of a semi-truck through the trees, she heard a horrendous lumbering, crashing noise, coming from her right.

  She could only see a small portion of the road beyond the overpass, but she saw the tractor-trailer that had been waiting up on the highway, now hitting the road from where it had rolled down the embankment. It collided in a spray of dirt and grass, lurched, tilted, and slammed onto its side like a felled leviathan, blocking the interstate.

  There came the screech of brakes.

  And then the thunder of guns.

  Everyone started shooting at once. Both squads, on either side of the interstate, directing their rounds downwards in a withering crossfire. The small arms targeted the cabs of the trucks, while the bigger machine guns roared and targeted the engine blocks.

  Julia watched as Menendez huddled over his M2 machine gunner and directed his fire. The first burst of five rounds hit the lead tanker truck and ripped its engine compartment to shreds, disabling it. Then Menendez slapped the machine gunner’s shoulder, and the M2 shifted to the next truck in the line.

  On the other side of the interstate, an identical collection of small arms and machine guns mirrored the movements, except they targeted the rearmost tanker and moved up.

  The tankers shed soldiers, doing what they were trained to do—assault through an ambush. But Julia didn’t see a single one of them get farther than putting their feet on concrete before they were destroyed in a flurry of gunshots.

  The guns rolled for what seemed like a long time to Julia.

  After what felt like twice the shooting that was necessary to accomplish complete destruction of every enemy combatant on the interstate, she became aware of Menendez’s voice shouting and transmitting: “Check fire! Check fire!”

  The gunfire ceased.

  Julia’s ears rang. The nuance of sound was gone. She couldn’t register the wind in the trees, or the shuffle of the leaves underneath her body. Just a dull ringing, and the sound of voices calling out.

  “You good?”

  “We’re good!”

  “Anybody hit?”

  “We’re solid.”

  “Bigfoot Actual, sitrep. Any casualties?”

  There did not appear to be any casualties.

  Julia felt a wash of relief, but her stomach still remained hollow and achy.

  Menendez stood up now. “Squad Two, secure the convoy. Gunners, get on that barricade in case those two MATVs come back.”

  From the trees on the other side of the interstate, several soldiers emerged and swarmed down the embankment to the roadway. The soldiers in the woods on Julia’s side stayed where they were, providing coverage if there happened to be any more live combatants.

  The machine gunners with the M249s ran for the tractor-trailer that had been laid out across the road as a barricade. The gunners on the M2s received help from their squad mates, and lugged the heavy machine guns down to support the M249s.

  Menendez paced back and forth behind his men. Watching as his other squad took the convoy and swept it. “Fuck yeah,” he mumbled to himself, repeatedly. Then he stopped to listen to something on his squad comms and threw a thumbs-up. “It’s clear. All clear. Let’s move.” He turned to his radioman. “Tell Willie to get the wreckers rolling. Let’s grab what we can and get outta here.”

  Julia hauled herself to he
r feet and crossed over to the edge of the woods, as the soldiers descended on the roadway.

  Menendez flashed her a smile, and motioned with his head, and then began to follow his soldiers down. Julia went after him.

  About halfway down, Julia watched one of Menendez’s men approach a downed soldier. He stripped the rifle out of the man’s hands, and then began to harvest everything else he could from the soldier—the helmet, the plate carrier.

  In the midst of this, the soldier came alive with a sudden, half-delirious yelp, and started scrabbling with Menendez’s guy.

  Julia’s heart lurched into her throat.

  There was a brief struggle, cut through by a few incoherent shouts, and then Menendez’s guy jumped back, raised his rifle, and put three rounds into the wounded soldier, putting him down.

  They both wore the same uniform.

  Menendez didn’t hurry his pace, but strode along, watching as it happened.

  They’re enemy combatants, Julia told herself, trying to quell the feeling of wrongness. Uniforms don’t matter. These are the enemy.

  Her stomach was unconvinced.

  Out in the open, the sunlight was sweltering. Julia felt sweat trickle out from under her helmet, and she ripped it off her head and mopped her brow.

  Menendez happened to glance back at her, and his brows knit with concern. “You alright? You look a little pale.”

  Julia nodded hastily. “It’s just hot.”

  They reached the shoulder of the interstate. Julia straddled the guardrail and thumped clumsily over. Her feet felt heavy. Her medical pack, her armor, her rifle, it seemed to have gained weight in the last few minutes. Or she’d gotten weaker.

  Down the road to the south, the sun glinted off a windshield.

  She squinted into the distance. Saw the wreckers coming.

  Someone shouted: “Got a live one!”

  Julia started running before she thought about it.

  “Julia!” Menendez hollered. “Wait!”

  Julia ignored him.

  She crossed the roadway. Ran between two tanker trucks, still smoking and stinking of exhaust and burning fluids. She rounded the front of a truck and saw three of Menendez’s soldiers down the line, looking up into one of the cabs. One of the soldiers had his rifle up, but the others didn’t seem to think it necessary.

  Julia wasn’t thinking about what she was doing. She just needed to do something.

  She reached the cab of the truck. The three soldiers around it took a step back, not sure whether they should stop Julia or not.

  Julia had expected there to be a soldier in the cab.

  What she found was a dark-haired woman in civilian clothing.

  The woman was slumped in the seat, but still breathing, eyes open and filled with terror. Her chest heaved, her mouth open and trickling blood. Her entire torso was covered in it, down to the jeans she wore.

  Julia put a hand up in front of the single soldier that still had his rifle trained on the woman behind the wheel of the truck. “Stop! Chill out!”

  The soldier looked as uncertain as his buddies, but dipped the muzzle of his rifle.

  Julia swung up onto the steps of the cab.

  The woman inside took a sharp breath and drew back from Julia, scared.

  Julia touched her on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m gonna help you.”

  “Julia,” Menendez’s voice behind her. “What are you doing?”

  Julia didn’t respond. The woman behind the wheel still looked scared, but she didn’t resist Julia as she put her arms around the woman and pulled her out of her seat. No one moved to help Julia.

  The woman groaned in agony as Julia pulled her out of the cab. It was difficult because the cab was so high off the ground, but Julia grit her teeth and managed it. In the face of a job to do, or a life to save, her strength and energy had come back to her limbs.

  The wounded woman’s feet thumped gracelessly down out of the truck.

  Julia hauled her to the shoulder of the road and laid her down on the dusty, gravelly blacktop. She put her helmet on the ground next to the woman, then slung her medical pack off her back. It was obvious the woman was shot in the chest. Julia was already picturing it. She would need an occlusive dressing. Some gauze to wipe away the blood.

  She started to unzip the main compartment of the pack.

  “Hey!” Menendez moved in a flash and snatched up the medical pack, pulling it out of Julia’s reach. “The fuck you think you’re doing?”

  Julia shot to her feet. “I’m keeping someone from dying! That’s my job!”

  “Your job’s to keep my boys alive, not the enemy.”

  “She’s a civilian!”

  “The fuck she is,” Menendez spat. “I don’t give a shit what clothes she’s wearing. She’s driving a truck for Briggs. That makes her an enemy combatant.”

  Julia was nose-to-nose with Menendez now, her pulse pounding in her head. She was peripherally aware that she was on thin ice. She didn’t know Menendez enough to push him. She didn’t know what he was capable of. Was she willing to put her life on the line to save this stranger?

  Menendez jabbed a finger at Julia’s medical bag. “You think we got infinity medical supplies? Every bandage you use is one less that could save one of my boys. You save this bitch, you doom one of my friends.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Let her die?”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it.”

  “You gonna kill her?”

  All semblance of good-humor had long since disappeared from Menendez’s face. He leaned into Julia, his lips almost touching her cheek as he spoke, and it was only out of sheer stubbornness that Julia didn’t back away from him.

  “Whaddaya want, huh?” he hissed. “You ain’t gonna waste the supplies to save her. We ain’t takin’ her back with us. You wanna just leave her out here? Huh? Leave her in the hot sun to die, slow and painful? Leave her for the fuckin’ teepios to find?”

  Sweat trickled into Julia’s eyes. She blinked it away.

  On the ground, the woman moaned.

  Julia looked at her.

  The woman’s eyelids fluttered. She was on the verge of losing consciousness. And then what? Julia was going to…do what? Patch the holes. Pump her full of IV fluid to get the blood pressure back up. And then what?

  Operate? Put her shredded lungs back together?

  Julia would try to do that for one of her team. But for a stranger? A stranger that was most likely going to die anyways?

  And for a flash, she saw it as Menendez saw it. Because no one was making medical supplies anymore. She saw it through the eyes of the cold clinician in her head, and she saw this woman, not as a fellow human being, but as a tally of medical equipment that Julia would never get back.

  Two chest seals.

  An IV.

  A dozen bandages.

  Pain medication.

  A round of antibiotics.

  Sutures.

  Scalpels.

  None of which could be replaced.

  The caregiver in her rebelled. But the heartless math couldn’t be argued with.

  “You’re not doin’ her any favors,” Menendez said, then drew back far enough to look Julia in the eyes. “Quick and painless is the best thing she can hope for.”

  Julia flushed. She hated that she was embarrassed by her actions—hated to be ashamed of being human—but there it was. Her eyes hit the dirt, and then she dragged them back up. Over to the woman.

  The woman’s eyes were closed. Her head lolled to one side. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth and into her hair.

  Her ruined chest hitched, like her heart was trying to restart itself.

  And then…nothing.

  The sound of diesel engines grew around them. The big wreckers had arrived.

  The soldiers gave the woman one last careless glance, and then shrugged to each other, deciding that there were more important things to be done. They moved off to help the wreckers hook up to
the tankers.

  Julia’s eyes stayed on the woman.

  She registered the fact that Menendez had moved on, too.

  The woman was dead. There was no more concern that Julia might waste valuable medical supplies on her.

  Was Briggs sending civilians? Or was Menendez right? Was the woman just another soldier that had chosen to wear civvies to blend in? To confuse the enemy? To confuse Tex and his squads?

  Julia’s head swirled. It was getting difficult to see the truth.

  It was getting difficult to see what was right.

  FOUR

  ─▬▬▬─

  TEXAS

  For Lee Harden, being sequestered to a bunker while he waited for his body to heal enough to be operational again was like being locked in a box like veal. Like solitary confinement. Like torture.

  Whether or not he was “healed” was a point of debate.

  But he had declared himself operational, and the only push back he got was a small downturn of the lips from Julia.

  So it was with a sense of fervent—almost pissed off—relief that he strapped his gear to himself for the first time since the operation at the airport in Andalusia, Alabama, and went topside with Abe to see if he could get into trouble.

  Which would prove not to be very difficult.

  Texas had a unique set of problems that Lee and Abe were about to get acquainted with.

  What Lee had gathered so far was that, while Lee had been distributing the supplies from his bunkers to the United Eastern States and trying to rebuild a viable civilian government—the stated mission of Project Hometown—Captain Terrence “Tex” Lehy had gone a different route.

  A more…militaristic route.

  The freight elevator lifted Lee and Abe from the belly of the bunker, up to the surface.

  It was a shock when he caught sight of himself in the reflection of the elevator’s stainless steel control panel. He knew he’d lost weight—his chest rig was loose when he’d strapped it on—but Jesus…his face.

  The shadows had deepened in the hollows of his cheeks, made even darker by the week of beard growth. He was already tall. If he kept losing muscle mass and fat, he was going to be downright gangly.

  But for all of that, Lee felt good. A barrage of antibiotics had cleared the pneumonia out of Lee’s lungs, and the bullet hole in his chest had healed up to a puckered scab now.