The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 40
As they moved deeper into the Town, a smell began to pervade the air. It was a scent Bea associated with dogs that were kept outside and never bathed. Their smell. And the smell of their leavings.
They didn’t seem to be taking many turns, Bea dimly noted. They’d come in on the main drag through the town, and just kept on going straight. At moments when she got enough gumption up to actually swivel her head and try to take in her surroundings, she spotted other figures lurking in dark corners, watching them pass.
Some were crouched in the shadows, others perched atop buildings. They made no sound or acknowledgement, but every time Bea caught sight of one, it was staring right at her.
Fresh fish, Bea began to think to herself, as though she were the new prisoner in a cellblock, and the words were being jeered at her. Fresh fish! Fresh fish!
There comes a level of exhaustion that, once reached, it becomes nigh on impossible to feel afraid. Bea thought she must’ve hit that some time ago, because it all just washed over her, and fear was not what she felt anymore. Just sickness, and misery, and resignation.
She just wanted to stop moving. She just wanted to lay down and sleep and never wake up. She had no fight left in her now. Could think of nothing more than just getting to wherever they were taking her, so that she could stop running. What happened after that seemed a far-off, muted horror.
So it was almost a relief when she lifted her gaze from the endless slapping of her beaten feet on the blacktop, and saw a large structure ahead of them, which Lander seemed to be heading for. One, big, dark box, that stood out from the other buildings both in size and construction. Like the whole town had been built in quaint brick and brownstone, and then some asshole had plopped this cinderblock and steel monstrosity in this midst of it all.
There was a wide bank of doors and windows on the front, with not a single pane of glass left standing in their frames. Above those black openings, massive letters had been painted on the steel siding in what looked like bright yellow, though the moonlight made it seem to glow silver.
On one side of those letters, a big arrow had been neatly and artistically painted, pointing upwards. The letters themselves—equally artful—read ASCEND CHURCH.
In the back of her fatigue-clouded mind, Bea remembered Ascend Church. One of a chain of mega churches that kept popping up all over California in the decade before the collapse, as unstoppable as Starbucks and mushrooms.
It seemed darkly ironic that this branch of Ascend Church now served as the deepest pit in the central circle of hell.
Lander and a few of his primals disappeared into one of the dark openings. Bea hesitated, but was propelled forward by Freya with a muttered growl. Into the blackness she went, her hands instinctively raised, feeling blindly ahead of her.
“Come,” Freya rasped in her ear. Then she seized Bea’s arm again and began hauling her onward through the soupy darkness. Bea heard movement all around her. The smell became so strong that she could taste it on her tongue, and wished she had the moisture in her mouth to spit it back out again.
Something like a glimmer of light ahead.
Freya pushed her through some sort of doorway, bashing Bea’s wounded shoulder against the frame of it as she went. She was too exhausted to even cry out. They seemed to be in a short, narrow corridor. Ahead of them, the light expanded, sepulchral and toad-belly pale.
She felt the ground slope downwards under her feet, and realized she was being ushered through an auditorium that seemed five times too big for a tiny place like the Town. The pale light was emanating from a massive hole in the ceiling, perhaps twenty or thirty feet over her head. Against the blackness all around, the huge shaft of moonlight seemed unnaturally bright.
And there, front and center, stood a stage. It was directly beneath the great hole in the ceiling, so the moon shown down on it like a spotlight, and Bea wondered if this was intentional. Craning her stiff neck up at the gaping hole, she saw the ragged edges of it, how the steel looked like it had been peeled back from the outside, with wiring hanging like jungle vines, and wispy beards of insulation dangling like moss.
The whole place had the feel, not of the modern structure it was, but of some long-forgotten temple, and the moonlit stage was the altar upon which blood and sanctity were sacrificed. And where Bea was being led by Freya’s iron grip.
The stage was not empty. Besides the stage lighting hanging skew, and a great wooden cross that lay mournfully on its side, and the vestiges of a drum set that had been half-crushed and pushed against a wall, there were…others.
Three of them. Females. As Bea was pushed closer, they each rose, first to a crouch, and then to their feet. They wore not a scrap of clothing on their bodies, and Bea realized this only surprised her because they did not look like the regular infected, with their hunched postures and over-long arms. When they stood, they did so with a lithe, feline grace far more savage than a human could ever move, and yet, the form of them could not be mistaken for anything else.
These were Lander’s wives, Bea realized. Half human, and half primal.
She’d expected them to be far more mutated, but they were actually…beautiful, in a way. In the same way that Bea remembered telling her mother as a child that lionesses were “sexy.” A strange thing to think as she was shoved inexorably towards them, their intense gazes on her all the while. But their bodies were as close to physical perfection as Bea had ever seen, covered in long, lean muscles that bore a sort of athletic edge, so that they seemed primed for violence in a way that was unmistakably predatory.
Fear, and something like awe gripped Bea as she stared at them, shocked to find she could feel much at all at this point. Worse than that, Bea was disturbed to realize there was something animalistically alluring about them. Powerful and sinuous, they were somehow both nightmarish and erotic.
Only their faces marred the strange effect. It was as though nature had taken a human face and pressed it out, and flattened the nose, and widened the mandibles, so that it seemed their lips could barely close around all those teeth. It gave the impression of less of a face, and more of a muzzle, and reminded Bea of a baboon.
Lander’s three wives were alone upon the stage, but all around the base of it lounged ranks and ranks of primals. They rose as though to meet Bea, and she noticed that they were all female too. These were the Omegas that Jax had talked about. A wall of them, surrounding the three hybrids on the stage.
To protect them? Or to keep them in?
Bea was given one final shove, accompanied by a growl to “Go.” She was so spent at that moment that her heart couldn’t have even sped up if it wanted to, and all she felt was a twinge of dread as she faced down what must have been two dozen or more Omegas. The ones nearest to Bea snarled and bared their teeth as she stumbled to a halt in front of them.
Freya barked something behind her, and it took Bea a full second to realize it hadn’t been a word. Hadn’t been meant for her.
The Omegas’ eyes darted to Freya, and their flashing teeth were immediately covered. Their heads ducked in something like submission, and they backed away from Bea, but still watched her intently.
Bea swayed on her aching, throbbing feet. She didn’t want to move forward, and didn’t want to move back. She simply didn’t want to exist anymore.
She turned her head to look behind her, dry mouth hanging open, still gulping the sour air. Freya stood a few paces behind her, pointing towards the stage and growling low in her throat. But Bea found her eyes caught onto other movements. All along the dim edges of the moonlight, she could see hunched, muscular forms stalking back and forth like animals in a cage. It was as though they wanted to come closer, but knew that they couldn’t.
Bea looked back to the ranks of female primals. So, they weren’t keeping Lander’s wives from escaping. They were protecting them from the males.
And suddenly it didn’t seem like a bad thing to be on that stage.
Her legs had already seized up and Bea could barely bend them as she stumbled through the path that had been cleared by the females. She hit the stage, which came up to her chest, and with one last gasp of effort, hauled herself onto it, and rolled onto her back. But then she hated how exposed she felt just laying there spread eagle, and curled up on her side, panting hard, with her eyes squeezed shut against the horrific world around her.
Breathing, breathing, breathing. Wishing she could be anywhere else. And not daring to open her eyes to see that her wish had been denied.
She didn’t know how long she lay there. Her mind was a mess. It seemed no thought could tie itself to another. Linear logic fled her. She was buffeted by waves of emotion that came on strong and then departed a moment later. She thought she might die, laying there on her side, and that thought was the only comfort she had.
“Tss.”
She knew the sound had come from very near her. She could feel the body heat of something hovering close. But she only squeezed her eyes tighter. God, why couldn’t they just let her die?
“Tss.” More insistent, and this time with an accompanying nudge to her forehead.
She ripped her bleary eyes open and stared up at a twisted version of a woman’s face, with wild eyes and a massive tangle of dark hair fringed silver in the moonlight. She wanted to recoil, but didn’t have the energy to do it. And where would she flee to? Where would she crawl?
“Tss,” the creature repeated, pursing its thin lips to make the sound, and Bea realized it was holding something out to her.
A blue, plastic bowl, filled with water.
She was somehow both ravenous for, and disgusted by the water. But the imperative of thirst was the stronger contender, and, almost as though animated against her will, Bea reached out two trembling hands and took the bowl of water. She sniffed it, and it smelled clean, but even before the smell really registered with her, she was already drinking it down.
“Sshu-sshu-sshu,” the creature whispered, and began to gently stroke Bea’s hair.
“Time check,” Lee said, as he lowered himself into the bed of the pickup, beside Abe.
“Forty-eight minutes left,” Marie informed him from beside the tailgate.
Abe popped the bipod on his ESR—an M2010 chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum—and settled into the scope. They’d liberated their stolen gear, of which the ESR was a part, along with Lee and Marie’s NVGs, which Jones and Sam were currently prepping. Unfortunately, Lee’s stolen watch had not been in their gear. He suspected it was on the wrist of a dead body, now laying somewhere in Horner’s Peak.
He had, however, gotten his plate carrier and personal rifle back. And his spare boots, which was a relief. He made sure to stow the boots he’d borrowed from Bea’s dead husband under the backseat of the truck. In case she wanted them back.
“Copy forty-eight minutes,” Lee murmured as he propped himself on his elbows and peered through the thermal spotting scope. Somebody’d been messing with it, and Lee had to toggle it to his preferred “white-hot” setting.
Three quarters of a mile distant, the Town became a mélange of gray geometry. With a sprinkling of white heat signatures.
“Whoo boy,” Lee intoned.
“That bad, uh?” Abe grunted. “What’re we workin’ with?”
Abe had clipped a PVS-30 night vision monocular to his rifle. It had no thermal imaging ability, but the light amplification let him see certain details that Lee’s thermal imaging could not. He’d see the targets easy enough once Lee pointed them out, but getting a big picture of the threats presented was definitely easier with the thermal.
Lee did a quick count. “Eight, but those are just the ones I can see. A few on roofs. Few on the street. Mostly stationary.”
“Any indication of the nest?”
Lee took a moment before answering. “Welp. My guess would be that big-ass building that’s sticking out of downtown like a sore thumb.”
“Yeah, I marked that,” Abe said. Then seemed to read, with a hint of irony in his voice. “Ascend Church.”
Of course, Lee hadn’t seen those letters, as they were the same temperature as the wall they were painted on. He’d been thinking the structure was some sort of warehouse, but now recognized it for what it was. Colonies of primals liked to settle in large, man-made structures with open, spacious rooms to congregate in. A megachurch fit that bill quite nicely.
He let out a soft chuff. “Well, that about fits, doesn’t it? Besides the size of it, that seems to be where the heat signatures are centered around.”
“Any clear way in that you can see?”
“No, not really. And without a birds-eye view, I can’t tell what’s around corners and shit. I’d say it’s a safe bet there’s plenty more than eight lounging around where I can’t spot them.”
“Might wanna check with the locals before we make a plan,” Abe counseled. “Hate to get all the way in and find out we chose the wrong building.”
Lee felt pretty confident that Ascend Church was their target, but it didn’t hurt to ask for confirmation. He pulled away from the spotting scope and pushed his way up so he was standing on his knees.
The Redoubters stood tensely about the truck, watching Lee and Abe with grimly nervous expressions. There were fourteen of them in all, but only twelve hovered around the truck. The other two had appropriated the rifles with the thermal optics from the two guards at Horner’s Peak, and were posted a handful of yards away, keeping a lookout for unwanted visitors.
“Anyone got a good idea of what building the primals are calling home?” Lee questioned the group. “Anyone seen it for themselves? Or maybe just heard about it?”
One of their number—a kid that couldn’t have been much older than Sam—seemed to check his comrades to see if anyone else was more confident than him, but no one answered up. He made a face and then shuffled forward and raised his hand.
“I haven’t seen it myself,” he began, hesitantly. “But I heard they were in a church.”
Lee lifted his eyebrows. “Any other details?”
“No.” The kid looked sheepish, like he’d given the wrong answer. “Just that it was a church. Heard it from some of the guys that used to go scavenging. Said they’d holed up in ‘the big, new church.’”
Lee turned his gaze back to Abe, who caught his look from over the scope. Lee shrugged. Abe shrugged back. It wasn’t quite as confirmed as would make Lee feel warm and fuzzy about it, but it would have to do. They could lay around all night and confirm it by watching the movements of the primals, but they didn’t have all night. They forty-eight minutes. Probably a bit less now.
“Keep an eye on things,” Lee said to Abe, pulling himself to his feet. He swung one leg over the pickup bed and sat down, straddling the wheel well. He wanted to ask if anyone had any bright ideas to get them in without being mauled, but feared an avalanche of idiocy. However, they were up against the clock, and their intel was piss-poor. Maybe someone knew something they didn’t.
He took a bracing breath and had out with it. “Alright. Anyone know how we can get in there unnoticed?”
A whole lot of downcast eyes was the only response.
Gary leaned an elbow on the truck bed. “Hell, you’re the military guy. We were kinda hopin’ you’d know how.”
Lee nodded. “I got an idea. But it don’t hurt to ask. Y’all know this area better than we do.”
He’d hoped that would stir someone to have the courage to speak out, but nothing came of it.
Marie looked up at him. “What’s your plan, then?”
“You remember OP Lillington?”
She frowned, remembering back across the years. “You mean the Camp Ryder Hub? I remember Lillington, but I never went.”
Lee squinted. She was right. That’d been before Marie started running with them. Back when Lee’s team was Harper and Tomlin and…Julia. Damn, but it still sent a pang through him. All those people that’d run operations with him back then—they were all dead.
He waved a hand as much to clear the confusion away as his own emotion. “Never mind. It’s how we used to clear towns about this size. We’d set up on a street that had good roofs to shoot down off of, rig up some claymores, then lure the infected in and wipe them out in one go.”
Sam and Jones, who were kneeling beside Marie, fiddling with the NVGs, both looked up. They had to switch them to the head mounts, as Lee and Marie’s helmets were another item that’d gone mysteriously missing in the ranch.
“That was before the primals, though,” Sam noted.
“Yeah, it was,” Lee acknowledged. Back then, they’d called them hunters instead of primals, but it was the same creature—those human beings with just the right mix of genetics that their bodies went into a rapid sequence of mutations to accommodate their new, animalistic lifestyle, rather than simply going mad and hyper-aggressive like the rest.
Jones offered up the next concern: “You think the primals would fall for something like that? And even if they did, hell, they can just climb the walls and come at us.”
“Yeah, they can.” There was no point in denying it. “But that’s the foundation of what I’m thinking—draw as many out of the nest as possible. We can accomplish that any number of ways, but what I was thinking was just running the truck straight in and trying to make contact with Lander.”
Marie only barely stifled a groan, and didn’t stifle her eye roll at all. “Really, Lee? You’re gonna do the diplomacy thing again? Because your track record on that is shit.”
“Well, I don’t imagine it’ll work,” Lee admitted. “But I figured I could try. Then when things inevitably go south, and he sics his primals on us, we hightail it and lead them away. All while blowing them to bits with the grenade launchers.”
“What about Bea?” Sam said, standing up with an NVG half-affixed to its head harness.
“We’d need an infil team to get into the target building once we draw off the primals.”
