The Remaining: Fractured Part 5

"Get everybody mounted up," LaRouche said. "We're moving in five."

CHAPTER 5: HEAD CHECK.

Lee stared at colors.

Golden brown, like the sun on sand.

Like a sand dune that stretches up, up, up, and overtakes every shred of blue sky.

But it didn't smell like dust, or the s.h.i.t-reek of oil fields, or the smell of open sewers in a third world country. It smelled like musty carpet. Mildew. Wet dog. A distinct "inside" smell. The smell of something lived in long enough to soak up all the smells of human habitation, but since abandoned.

There was pain.

Feverish, aching pain that soaked his whole body. Throbbing pain in his ankle that bulged at the joint, slow and deliberate. Spiking pain in his head that jacked through the seams of his skull to the beat of his own pulse.

Lee moved his head, saw that the sand dune was a wall, painted that golden sandy color, made bright by the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He had no clear thought upon waking, but instead...panic. Confusion and disorientation as his mind tried to match his whereabouts to some place he knew, some place from his memory. But what he saw was unfamiliar to him, and his memories were shattered into bits and pieces.

He was cold. Shivering actually. But part of him was warm, near his legs.

He looked down along the line of his body.

He lay on his side, facing the wall. His hands were tucked tightly into his chest and clutched in his red right hand was a blood-spattered KABAR, the wood handle sticking to his fingers, his fingers sticking to each other. A brown and tan dog was curled at his legs and stirred when he moved, raising its lupine face and regarding him with golden eyes and perked, pointed ears.

Beyond the dog at his feet, he could see a linoleum entryway. Then a door hanging open, and outside, the world. Bright and cold.

Lee sat up sharply, ignoring the pain it caused. The sight of the door standing open like that set his heart to ricocheting around in his chest cavity. The dog lying next to him jumped out of his way as he heaved himself across the entryway and kicked the door shut.

Trembling from cold, from fear, from pain, he got to his knees. Put his b.l.o.o.d.y hands against the door and straightened just slightly so he could peer out the half-moon shaped window at the top. His breath hit the gla.s.s, frosting it in front of his face.

There was a neighborhood out there. A bunch of tract-built houses, twenty or so of them crammed into a cul-de-sac street. The houses directly across from him seemed intact. One a little farther down was blackened around the windows, the vinyl siding melted and pocked, the roof collapsed. The street and sidewalk were empty and scattered about with trash that clung to overgrown front lawns.

Lee scanned the streets, his pulse still knocking.

Unsure what he was looking for. Unsure what he was afraid of.

He put his back to the door and slid down to a crouch, trying to catch his breath.

"What's wrong with me?" Lee whispered desperately. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

Lee raised his hands to his head. Felt the sting and the hot, fleshy groove along his scalp. He recoiled from his own touch, but seized on the memory of the wound. Yes. He knew he had that wound. He knew that he'd been shot in the head. He was hurting. Maybe the confusion was because of that...

"Okay," he muttered under his breath. "Okay. Okay."

The dog stood in the middle of the floor, head c.o.c.ked. It stared at him for a moment, then seemed to relax a bit. It licked its chops and one of its hind feet came up tentatively to scratch at his side for a moment. The dog watched his own paw, as though it moved of its own volition and he was leery of its intentions. He itched himself, then sat.

Lee closed his eyes and hung his head between his knees. It seemed to alleviate some of the pain. His breath slowed. His heart rate slowed. His thoughts seemed to slow, to stop swirling around like they were dust motes caught in a cyclone. He forced himself to think. Focus. One thing at a time.

How did I get here?

He remembered running. Remembered cold, gray branches whipping at him. The brown and tan dog just ahead of him, barking as the two of them ran through the woods. The cold ache in his lungs. Salt in his mouth as snot ran into it.

Before that.

Before that there was waking up, just like now. Except it had been dark out. He'd been confused. The dog was barking at something. He had the knife in his hands. He was looking for something else, but couldn't find it.

Before that.

Just a set of dark, regretful eyes behind a small silver revolver.

Eddie Ramirez...

It was like he had backed his spring-loaded memory up as far as it would go, and now released it. It rocketed forward through a blur. The eyes, the gun, the waking, the pain, the confusion. Then running. Barking. Fear. Hard hands. Growling. Gnashing teeth. Straining muscles against something strong. Much stronger than him. Pulling him down. He remembered slashing out with the knife, targeting arteries. Then there was more running.

He'd slept at some point-it was dark, very dark. He was cold but exhausted. He slept in a pile of leaves, gathering them up over him like a blanket. Then there was a noise that woke him and he ran without thinking. Tripped and fell. An old barbed wire fence. He got up and kept going.

Then he ran through a backyard. Across the road. The dog was beside him, but it didn't bark. He kicked open the door to a house-this house. He fell in the entryway. His body finally gave out and he didn't get up. He just closed his eyes. Went back to sleep before his mind had time to make sense of anything.

Lee opened his eyes. The realization of it hit him like a cramp in the gut.

My GPS! Eddie Ramirez has my GPS!

"Okay," he repeated, rolling onto his hands and knees, and then finally taking his feet, supporting himself against the wall. "Need to move. Need to keep moving. Need to get going." He bent down and grabbed his knife from the floor, groaned as he did so. "I've gotta find him."

He evaluated himself. Cold, and in pain. Beyond that, he was hungry and incredibly thirsty. He stumbled forward, still touching the wall, still holding the knife in a death grip. Another thought occurred to him: Had he even cleared the house before he pa.s.sed out?

No. Because he hadn't even shut the door behind him.

He swore under his breath. There could be infected in the house. He could have woken up to find himself being eaten, ripped apart like prey for a wild animal.

"You've got to get your s.h.i.t together," he whispered to himself. "No more mistakes."

His mouth became silent, but his mind continued on.

Because there's no one here to help you.

Because you're alone.

As he thought the last word-alone-things became a little clearer, and his mind traced through the faces of the people he had left behind. Angela. Harper. Bus. LaRouche. Father Jim. Julia. Marie. They were all back at Camp Ryder...no...that wasn't right. He'd sent some of them away.

Something about bridges. Bridges over the Roanoke River.

He shook his head, then cringed at the wave of dull pain that it brought. He knew why he had sent them away, could feel the truth rattling around in there, but all of his memories were jostled out of their proper place. He just needed to pick them up and put them back where they belonged. At least, he hoped it would be that easy. He hoped that the wound on his head had not scrambled his brain permanently.

He continued cautiously through the living room and stumbled into the adjoining kitchen. It was a small, dingy room, cluttered with dishes and dirty pans that were piled high in the sink and on the surrounding countertop. A collection of cans huddled at the far end of the counter, beyond which a garbage pail overflowed onto the kitchen floor. The cans were from soups and beans and vegetables and meats, their tops pulled back and covered in a greenish-white fuzz.

Lee's stomach rumbled audibly. He moved to a door that looked like it belonged to a pantry. Opening it created a stir of tiny claws that scrambled away from the light and shot into dark corners and holes. Little granular bits of mouse s.h.i.t covered the shelf s.p.a.ce. A box of Hamburger Helper with the corner chewed to bits. Some baking soda. A small bag of cornmeal.

He took the cornmeal and left everything else. It could be eaten raw, mixed into a coa.r.s.e dough with nothing but a little bit of water, if he could find that. He continued through the cupboards and cabinets, but found them empty. In a drawer he found an old packet of mayonnaise. He squeezed it into his mouth because it was high in fat and calories and he knew he would regret leaving it. Then he moved to the refrigerator.

He hesitated, because a refrigerator without power for several months can smell almost as bad as a dead body. He took a deep breath, covered his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm, and opened the fridge. It was surprisingly barren. He shut it quickly anyways. Opened the freezer on top and found only a bag of green beans, long since thawed and rotted away into a dark sludge.

He closed the freezer and turned away.

Down the hall, with three bedrooms and a bathroom. He entered the first bedroom, to the left. It was a child's bedroom-a boy. Full of Disney caricatures and action figures. He checked under the bed and in the closet just to be safe. There was no one hiding in the room. Nothing of interest, and something about it being a kid's room bothered him. He moved on.

He went into the bathroom. No water in the toilet reservoir, but he wasn't to that level of dehydration anyway. He checked under the sink, found nothing but a box of tampons and some drain cleaner. He moved up to the medicine cabinet. He rifled through the collection of bottles inside, reading the labels of each. An ancient bottle of prenatal vitamins. Some acetaminophen and ibuprofen, which he emptied into his pants pockets. There was a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton swabs.

He took these items down and closed the medicine cabinet. He looked at the mirror, uncomfortable with what it showed him. He stood in stark contrast to his own memories of himself. Like he'd been transplanted into another man's body. His face was gaunt and drawn, his beard disheveled and wiry-looking, with bits coming in gray on his hollow cheeks. His eyes were dark and sunken, seeming wide as though they were perpetually surprised.

He looked unhealthy at best. Psychotic at worst.

He turned to inspect the right side of his head. The hair was matted and clumped with dried blood. The long, open wound looked swollen and angry. He reached up, still holding his KABAR and extended one shaky index finger which he used to cautiously probe at the wound. It smarted viciously, felt hot to the touch.

It's getting infected, he realized.

Then he thought of all the blood on his hands, and how much of that was his and how much belonged to a dead infected somewhere in the woods? Had any of it gotten into his wound? Was his confusion a result of the bullet wound to the head...or was he going mad?

He left the hydrogen peroxide and the cotton swabs on the bathroom counter. He marched down the hall, teeth clenched. He found the washer and dryer, and a wire rack above them that held what he needed. He grabbed a towel from the rack, and then took the bottle of bleach. Then he returned to the bathroom.

At the sink he soaked the towel and used it to scrub his hands until he could see his pale skin underneath. The towel turned into a washed-out red. Like watercolor. He threw the filthy towel into the tub and opened the package of cotton swabs and the hydrogen peroxide. He wet the swabs with the peroxide and got to work cleaning his wound.

It was slow, painful work with the cotton swabs, and the hydrogen peroxide hissed and bubbled against his split skin. A pile of red cotton swabs began to acc.u.mulate in the sink until he finally had the wound clean enough to see through the scabbed blood. He considered st.i.tching it closed, but dismissed the idea. That would be the worst thing to do for it at this point in time, when infection was already probable. Closing the wound now would only be like putting a lid on a petri dish and hiding it in a warm dark place. His best bet would be to keep it clean and bandaged.

But he needed to find some antibiotics.

He checked a few orange prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet, but they were old and the labels worn so that he could barely read what the prescription was for. He found a tube of antibiotic ointment and delicately spread a thin salve across the split in his scalp. He then closed the medicine cabinet again, avoiding looking at himself in the mirror, and left the bathroom.

In the main bedroom he overturned the mattress, hoping for a gun. No such luck. He ransacked the closet and the chest of drawers. Nothing of use, but he did take a white cotton t-shirt from one of the drawers. He split it into a wide strip and used it to bandage his head.

As he did this, moving room to room, the dog followed him. It padded along quietly, sometimes with its head down low, sometimes staring up curiously at whatever Lee was doing. Lee took a moment to stop and look at the dog. Odd that he hadn't really thought twice about the dog following him, but when he put his mind to it, he knew the dog belonged with him.

After a long moment's thought, he pointed with his knife. "Deuce."

The dog's tail stirred, the barest hint of a wag.

"Yeah. That's what I named you." Lee nodded to himself. "You can smell 'em, can't you? You can smell 'em from a long way off?" He knelt down and reached one hand out. The dog shied away from his touch at first, but then let him scratch behind the ears. "And you haven't growled, so we must be good, right?"

Deuce yawned, smacked his chops.

"Right." Lee smiled, but his face felt unsuited for the expression. He let it fall and stood up. It felt good to talk to someone, even if the dog couldn't talk back. So he kept it going. "Well, there doesn't seem like a whole lot of good s.h.i.t in this house. I think we should move on."

They left out of the back door and crossed to the neighbor's house. Lee peered through windows while Deuce trotted around and marked all the shrubs he could find. Lee found the back door locked and barricaded, so he moved cautiously around to the front. It was a two-story house, with a door in the center and two second-story windows to either side of the front door so it looked like two eyes. Closed into these windows were white bed sheets that clung stiffly to the side of the house and didn't stir in the breeze.

Lee tried the door without success, then put a shoulder into it. It rattled loudly and he took a step back, looking around and down both sides of the street, like a burglar worried about the neighborhood watch. Deuce crept into the front lawn and stood there, tongue lolling.

A rustle of leaves from a natural area between houses drew his attention.

A pair of squirrels erupted from a bush and shot up a tree, one after the other.

Lee took a breath to calm his jangled nerves and then turned back to the door. With a sudden grunt he put a foot into the door, just to the side of the k.n.o.b. The door burst open with a crack of wood, rebounded off its hinges, and almost came to a closed position again before Lee put his hand in the way and stopped it by stepping through into the residence.

He moved through the house carefully, much in the same way as before. He felt clearer than when he'd first woken up, his mind more focused. In the living room he found a large fish tank, still full. The sides of the gla.s.s were speckled with algae, the top of the water a thick layer of pond sc.u.m. Two large and exotic-looking fish floated amid the green layer, their bulbous eyes gray and sightless.

A soft click of claws on the foyer tiles caused him to spin.

Deuce stood partially through the doorway, sniffing the house hesitantly. His ears forward, tail level. His body language was neutral.

Lee moved on.

The kitchen was cramped. A table took up much of the floor s.p.a.ce, and was parked in front of the back door to barricade it. He left it where it was. Lee searched the narrow kitchen and came up with a can of corn and a half-full gallon of water from the pantry. He uncapped the water and sniffed it. It smelled fine. He took a sip, swished it around in his mouth. It was cool on his tongue, and tasted slightly of plastic, but otherwise was okay. He took a longer drink, then recapped the jug.

He rummaged through the drawers, pulling up a can opener when he found it and setting to work on the can of corn. He opened it and ate it there, fishing every last kernel out. What was left in the bottom of the can was a murky-looking water. He pulled out the cornmeal he'd taken from the other house and mixed small amounts into the water until he had created a thick paste.

Deuce sat before him, very attentively.

Lee scooped a big wad of the paste onto his fingers and held it down to the dog. Deuce moved in quickly and it was gone from Lee's finger tips in a flash of pink tongue. Lee pulled out another mouthful. "Go ahead, buddy. You earned it. You already saved me once."

Lee ate the last half of the cornmeal. He took a moment to think more than five minutes ahead. He stood quietly in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. The yard ended in a thin patch of trees that separated this house and the house on the next street over. Through the layer of trees, the houses on the next street looked strangely untouched. Like he could just step through that bit of forest and find himself in a neighborhood without violence and chaos, with joggers and dog walkers and people in robes stepping out to get the newspaper. Fresh cups of coffee in hand.

He looked down at his dirty old boots. Mud-caked and blood-spattered. Bits of leaves still clinging to them. He didn't want to think about a neighborhood without violence and chaos, because such a thing was not real. He would not delude himself. This was the world. This was his world. He may as well have been born into it, because everything else was so long gone, it seemed that it had never existed.

Think about what you need to do, he told himself.

Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.

You need to get your GPS back.

How the f.u.c.k are you going to do that?

It was easier said than done. Eddie had a big head start on him. And he'd taken Lee's Humvee. And Lee could only take an educated guess as to where the other man was heading at that moment. But he knew that he should know where Eddie was going. He just couldn't make it clear to himself. He closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in what looked like pain, but he was only trying to think. His scattered mind seemed to be avoiding him. Like something recently forgotten that only recedes deeper back into your mind the more you try to haul it to the surface.

Lee touched his head where it ached, as though the overstress and confusion and mult.i.tude of questions were going to split his skull open like an over-pressurized pipe. Whatever wires had been jarred loose by taking a bullet graze across his dome, Lee could feel that he wasn't thinking as quickly or making connections as well as he'd done before. He felt stunted. Like his thoughts were being suppressed. Like he had the truth rolling around in there, but he just couldn't lock it down into place.

He started with what he knew and tugged at the thread gently.

Eddie Ramirez. He stole my GPS and tried to kill me.

Why?

Because...

Because...