Beyond Green Fields | Book 6 | Red's Diary [ A Post-Apocalyptic Story] Page 4

  I chose to watch Miller instead, looking for cracks in his armor. That he was quiet and focused didn’t come as a surprise. I reasoned it must have been pretense since he couldn’t actually be this calm, considering what had happened during the two days of their stay with us, but he kept it up as long as he thought I was in earshot. Or likely would have continued to do so, but as soon as they perceived themselves on their own—not knowing that there was a window behind one of the shelves that let sound through perfectly, with me lurking on the other side of the wall—Burns accosted him.

  “What the fuck happened?” he demanded, certainly not like a sergeant talking to his captain.

  I could hear Miller let out a chuffing sound; it was all too easy to picture him grimacing. Yet when he responded, his voice was level. “They fixed her. That’s what happened.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.” Burns was clearly not buying the BS Miller was trying to sell.

  “It’s the only thing that’s important,” Miller shot back, his voice still carefully neutral but with a hint of anger in it. Not much of a surprise, that.

  “Yeah?” When Miller still didn’t elaborate, Burns sighed. “You going to tell me what the fuck they intend us to do? Not saying I was looking forward to days of mission briefings, but it would have been nice to know something.”

  Miller let out a harsh chortle. “You know as much as I do.” A brief pause, then, “Essentially, Hamilton says ‘jump,’ and we better not even ask how high.”

  The soft laugh Burns offered in response sounded real. “And what exactly made you agree to that?”

  Rather than offer up the slew of euphemisms I was sure Miller was burning to spew forth, he repeated himself. “They fixed her. It’s in her best interest that I don’t do anything that could make them change their minds.”

  I expected more to come, but he must have given Burns a sign or something because no answer followed. I figured I had lurked outside long enough that it made sense for me to return, so I did, finding the two men a little further down the shelves, Burns industriously rifling through winter gear while Miller was grabbing a pair of boots from the lower end of the rack—the smaller sizes—but then paused, a pained look crossing his features. Burns noticed, looking curious rather than guarded.

  “Same size, and roll up a second pair of socks for padding,” I offered my unsolicited but hopefully helpful advice. We’d had some issues with frostbite last winter, which had led to us establishing the shelves earlier this year.

  Both men glanced over to me, neither surprised to see me having returned. Burns didn’t ask but still looked curious; Miller ignored me, but he didn’t switch the boots for a smaller pair, either.

  They didn’t exchange another word except for some minimal gear chat, most of that happening with Tanner, their other former soldier, and mostly centered around what gear the girl that had come with him might need. Sooner than I would have expected—but really shouldn’t have—they were done, Miller apparently in a hurry to continue his constant supervision of his wife. I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw that he’d picked up two tomahawks for her, but it wasn’t a bad idea.

  An hour later, everything was bundled up in the plane and we were ready for takeoff. Lewis was too weak to walk so Miller carried her inside. Since there was ample room for us with limited gear packed, I would have given them some privacy, but one look at Hamilton’s gloat made it quite obvious that wasn’t going to happen. It was kind of funny to watch Miller fuss over his wife, doing his very best to ignore what else was going on around them, while her attention was laser-focused on Hamilton, the two of them engaging in a veritable staring match—and Lewis didn’t look like she was losing. The very idea of how much pain she must have been in made goose bumps all over my arms break out, but there was literally nothing any of us could have done to change it.

  After hours in the air, we touched down at the airstrip by the port. I was out of my seat as soon as I was sure I wouldn’t get smashed against our cargo or the side of the plane, keeping myself busy with coordinating the unloading effort. Lewis was barely conscious let alone lucid by then, but with three serum-enhanced men around her, each of them weighing twice as much as her and in prime physical condition while she was so obviously not, there was no reason to be alarmed about her state. I doubted she would die now since she had made it through the most critical hours directly after the operation, but Miller looked more than ready to take care of that problem should it arise. Hamilton looked perfectly eager to offer his assistance. If he did, I actually missed it, which I was quite happy about.

  By the time the last bundles of cargo were unloaded, the scavenger group was well out of sight in the bowels of the destroyer, which I was insanely glad for. I still had to check in with them, but by then Lewis was stored away on her cot, looking like she was ready to fall asleep. Clearly not their first time on a destroyer, Miller didn’t need further instructions except for the basics, and I hightailed it out of there as soon as possible—

  Only to join the next farce of a briefing with the captain and XO of the ship, and the sergeant in charge of the marines currently stationed on the destroyer who were responsible for all the sorties and procuring action. While the navy officers looked mostly disinterested, the marine was already glaring at Hamilton and me, and that was before Hamilton had even had a chance to get in her face. She barely waited for the required pleasantries to be exchanged—mostly names and ranks—before she narrowed her eyes on us.

  “Care to explain to us what exactly is up with the spectacle you’ve brought along?”

  I fully expected Hamilton to remind her that, the usual differences between the branches aside, she was still the only NCO in the room, but instead he gave me a sidelong glance, letting me explain. Oh joy.

  “They are our technical expert team,” I offered, trying very hard not to cringe at my own bullshit.

  Buehler gave me a look that spoke volumes. “That one looked like the only thing she could be an expert on is dying.” She paused as if to give us a chance to contradict her. Neither of us did, so she went on. “Is this a joke to you? You did read my reports, right? The situation in Europe is just as dire as in the States, if not worse in some regions.”

  Hamilton spoke up before I could. “If you’re shitting your pants because you’re afraid she’ll rampage through your precious little boat here, no worries. We take care of our own.”

  She didn’t like being chided—and even less so the belligerence in Hamilton’s tone—but gave a curt nod. “So she’s like you, I presume?” When Hamilton didn’t react and all I did was cast him a sidelong glance, she guffawed. “Oh, come on. You really think that after a year and a half into this the rest of us haven’t figured out that a certain number of you are immune to the virus but extremely nasty to deal with should you happen to bite it? This isn’t my first rodeo, and while I know I have no business knowing about your mission, I do know enough to realize it’s deep black ops shit.” She glanced at the captain, muttering a brief apology about her use of profanity but clearly didn’t mean it.

  Hamilton smirked yet left it to me to respond. “All of them except for the girl are,” I confirmed. “They know what they’re doing.” When her doubtful look taxed me, I shrugged. “They’re scavengers, and on the more resourceful end of the spectrum.”

  I didn’t miss the hint of a grin appearing on Buehler’s face, even though she tried to hide it. “You mean, they kicked your asses,” she taunted. “I thought I recognized some of them.” When I eyed her askance, she let the grin surface. “Forget who runs the Silo? You’re not the only ones who still have video surveillance and printers.”

  That came as a surprise—that she knew who Miller and Lewis were, which was my guess—but shouldn’t have in hindsight. I doubted she was up to date on the most recent developments, but Wilkes and his people had been working well with most of the scavengers all year long, and I still didn’t buy their claim to have cut ties with them after Petty Officer S
tanton had gotten infected. That had been a clusterfuck of epic proportions, but not exactly the scavengers’ fault.

  “Anything else?” Hamilton asked, clearly annoyed by the holdup—or the fact that the sergeant was absolutely right with her assessment of the situation.

  Buehler shook her head, leaving it to the ship’s XO to give us a quick rundown of their schedule. Before I knew it, we were officially dismissed. While Hamilton went on to investigate the quarters that had been allocated to us, I went to check on our people to make sure that they had stored all weapons in the armory and their gear was well taken care of—and complete. That this meant I so happened to be taking inventory of our assault rifles and shot guns as Sergeant Buehler also ventured into the armory was mere coincidence.

  She paused just inside the door, taking a moment to size me up. I gave her a smile that was halfway toward a grimace, which seemed to be the right thing to do since she relaxed ever so slightly. “There’s a poker game of the ship’s NCOs going on in the mess later, at nine,” she told me. “I’m sure they’d make an exception for you, if you want to join us.”

  “You mean because I’m my team’s rookie with literally everyone having a decade of experience on me but they somehow indulge me into thinking I’m in charge?” I ventured a playful guess.

  She snorted. “Because you seem a little less stuck up than the rest.”

  I considered for a moment, but there really was no sense in not accepting the invitation—and I wasn’t about to ignore an offer to easily and unbureaucratically liaise with the other branches. “Count me in.”

  That settled, she left me to my own devices, which boiled down to a sheer endless sequence of checking in with people who were doing just fine without my supervision. It still took over most of what was left of the night, which ended with me staggering, quite bleary-eyed, into the mess come morning, ready to hit the sack after loading up on some chow.

  Of course, this meal came with entertainment, of the rather macabre sort.

  I hadn’t expected Lewis to make an appearance—in fact, if I hadn’t been so damn tired, I would have swung by their room and asked Miller to elect one of them to come with me so he could fetch food for the rest—but clearly, she lacked any sense of when it was in her best interest to stay down… a sentiment that I soon came to understand defined her as much as her intellect. To say she looked like hell was an understatement. I’d had plenty of opportunity to study the progression of what I knew was her healing process but looked quite a lot like the opposite. Right after they had brought her out of the operating room, she had been white as a sheet but still looking more or less like she had before, if one was to ignore the angry red of her scars and the swelling that had quickly taken over half of her body. By the time we left for the destroyer, the swelling had already started to go down, the deathly pallor of her skin replaced by an equally unhealthy-looking flush. She must have been burning up throughout the flight and well through getting settled in on the ship. Now, her eyes were more or less clear again although I didn’t expect her to be perfectly lucid. If I hadn’t seen her before, only her painfully slow and careful motions would have given away that she must have been in tremendous pain still. Yet I had seen her before, so I couldn’t ignore the fact that she had easily lost most of what little had been left of her superfluous subcutaneous fat, her body burning through its reserves faster than she could possibly replenish them—and likely wouldn’t stop doing so for another week at least.

  I felt nothing short of revulsion watching her chug down the abysmal-tasting nutrient concoction that I’d been told to mainline for a day just after breaking my leg. From the way her cheeks were already hollowing out and her brow bones were becoming more pronounced, she definitely needed it. Virtually all of the soldiers were watching her with sick fascination, every single one of them at least aware of how vile that sorry excuse for a meal was. If I hadn’t been observing their reaction, I would have missed the equally calculating look Miller was taxing them with. So it was a deliberate move on his side, not just him obliging his wife’s wish to escape the relative confinement of their cabin. Clever—and something I should have expected, I reminded myself. Our gazes crossed paths for a second but he looked away when he realized that I was on to him, appearing perfectly placid in his fussing over Lewis.

  The same routine repeated itself over dinner with little change, except for Lewis appearing a little more composed and a tad gaunter. I tasked Hill with tracking me down and giving me updates should that become necessary—much to his silent but obvious annoyance—and went to find the poker game.

  I was a little surprised that only two of the engineering crew were above my age, and Sergeant Buehler was by far not the only woman present. Over the next hour of me playing as strategically as I could while benevolently bleeding chips wherever possible to keep them in a good mood and chatting, I found out that a substantial part of the crew hadn’t even been a part of the navy when the shit hit the fan. Roughly half of them were scientists or workers, collected after they had survived the early onslaught of the virus in the isolation of oil rigs and research stations. The destroyer itself was one of only a handful that had managed to make it through the worst of it because it had been in the process of deploying, the captain jumping land as soon as he had enough people on board to let a skeleton crew operate it. Myers, one of the engineers and actually a navy lifer, explained that he had waited until the very last moment, but decided to preserve what crew they could rather than hold on to hope that was all but gone. They still had to battle several waves of outbreaks whenever they made landfall to look for provisions until they had learned what not to go for. Since bolstering their numbers with civilians, the captain had offered his crew the choice to return to land so they could look for surviving relatives. Not a single sailor had taken him up on it, and Buehler stressed more than once that her marines had become quite comfy after settling in here. How they had ended up on the destroyer she didn’t offer up, but it was easy to see why both sides were happy to have them aboard.

  It was after midnight when the engineers finally called it quits, leaving me cleaned out of the chips I had “bought” with some ration bars, my ego slightly chipped, and Buehler not making a move to follow them. I’d spent most of the evening sitting opposite of her which had given me ample time to study her reactions and mannerisms—and appreciate the curves she hid well under her uniform blouse but had been mostly on display since she had stripped down to the tight black thermal she was wearing underneath. Of course it was sheer coincidence that I’d opted to do the same, putting us both in stark contrast to the engineers, former civvies, and Petty Officer Boon, who was easily twice as old as the feisty marine herself.

  Silence settled, and, if anything, that left her wryly amused as she waited for me to make my move. She must have seen something she didn’t quite like—or my polite hesitation did the trick—as she suddenly leaned forward, planting both elbows on the table as she regarded me intently. “I know that there’s the possibility that we could turn your stay with us into a territorial pissing contest. I’d much rather regard this as an opportunity to ignore what little regulations have never made much sense and have since become utterly useless. I’ll be blunt—my hands are tied since I won’t risk the peace on this boat and refuse to besmirch my reputation by jumping any of my men or the destroyer’s staff. But you’ll be gone in two weeks from now, and if you’re unlucky, we’ll never see each other again.” Her smile deepened when she drew a comical wince from me. “Oh, come on. You just spent the entire evening letting them win so they’d see you as a friend and share all that useless chatter with you. Your ego can take it. Question is, can you?”

  My dick let me know in no uncertain terms that the answer to that was definitively affirmative.

  If anything, that made the trip a little more bearable—until Bree Lewis took it upon herself to throw a wrench into my gears.

  Watching her explode in one of the mess crew’s faces was priceless. S
eeing her shuffle around had become my men’s favorite pastime. I missed the first time Miller ushered her into the gym but got to observe the second instance, a rather grotesque-seeming exercise of her mostly walking around, sitting down, getting back up, and doing slow sequences of balance exercises. To the marines present it must have looked like she was half-assing everything, but I didn’t miss how much her body was shaking from overexerting itself, her teeth permanently gritted, sweat drenching her forehead. It was only when she dropped to the floor and took off her gloves and socks to get a better grip while stretching that their eyes almost bugged out fo their heads.

  It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Burns chose that exact moment to stop the sets of deadlifts he had been doing for the past half hour to waltz over to the marines and get incessantly chatty, drawing their attention away from her. I doubted Lewis noticed; Miller sure did, the same as he noted my own scrutiny. He didn’t say anything—let alone glare at me—but I still got the warning, as did the few of my men who had gotten a little too lenient in their workouts.

  Again it was Lewis herself whose actions made it easy for him not to have to strut around like an attack dog, guarding her virtue. As soon as she was capable, she hit the weights, spending hours each day in the gym with Burns. Miller only showed up to help her stretch and get started on a few sparring exercises. I was still asking myself how anyone could actually think that she’d be ready by the time we’d make landfall, but seeing her put so much effort into her recovery sure put my men at ease.