Apocalypse Aftermath (57 page)

She pointed past Peter at Carlson.  He knew without turning who she was singling out.

“Now I’m not going to tell you what to do, but if Carlson walks out here then so do I.  Right after him.”

Peter sighed, but as he considered her he knew she meant every word.  “And then what?”

“How’s that?”

“You track him down and take him out.  Then what?”

Crawford shrugged.  “I’ll figure something out.  Not like it’ll matter all that much.”

“It’ll matter to us.”

“Hah!” she shook her head.  “Don’t give me that.  I’m not an easy person to get along with.  I fucking get that.  I’m rude and abrasive and I like to run my mouth.”

“And you’re full of yourself, overly confident, and can be a real bitch more than anything else, but you’re one of us.” Peter added.

“See.  Swanson got me, and we got along whatever anyone else thought about it.  I’m not going to do nothing about what happened to him.  Let me do this.  It’s the easy way out.”

“Bullshit.” he said, summoning a measure of sternness to his voice.  “It’s simple, but it’s also giving up.”

“Gunny—”

“My turn.” Peter commanded.  “For better or worse, we’ve been through a lot of shit in the last week.  More than anyone could have imagined.  We’ve gotten through it by sticking together.  That counts for something.”

“Candles and them didn’t.”

“They stuck with us long enough to get out of Atlanta.  I wasn’t lying when I told them I didn’t begrudge their leaving.  I still don’t.  We could use them, but their hearts weren’t in it, and there was no sense in forcing the issue.”

“Same with this.”

“No, not the same.” he corrected.  “You’re one of us.  We’ve all had a bunch of chances since Atlanta to scatter to the four winds and no one’s done that.  Pulling watches on short-sleep, going into stores and the zombie infested darkness because no one else wanted to, that crazy shit with the trucks
yesterday, firing on State Police who were in our way . . . anyone who was going bail already would’ve.  The best thing for all of us is to stay together so we can keep getting each other through this shit.”

“I can’t if he lives.” she said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.  “I just can’t.”

Peter nodded, slowly, almost reluctantly, but with a sense of decision finally.  “I get that.  I
understand
that.  But don’t throw away what little we’ve managed to put together for the sake of a moment’s vengeance.”

“He has to die.”

Peter sighed.  “I’m still not sure.”

Crawford’s face suddenly twisted with a rage so intense it startled Peter.  The anger radiating from her was palpable as she stepped toward him, the lines on her face as she narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw, the set of her shoulders and fisting of her hands
, all telling him she was on the verge.

“I
am
.” she hissed.

“Craw—” Peter began, but she was moving.  She abruptly
darted sideways, trying to go around him.  Peter moved with her, his hands coming up to ward her off.  Only his years of experience let him catch the signs as she turned the movement into an attack; his training in hand-to-hand and leadership warning him as she shifted her weight and slipped whatever control over her temper she had been keeping in place.

His hands intercepted hers as she tried to give him a shove.  Peter was only partially successful in deflecting the
push; he mitigated some of its force, but not enough, and he staggered backwards.  Instinctively, not wanting to let her stay free to continue moving on Carlson – or to stand over him and take a shot while he was down – he latched onto her left wrist and right forearm and pulled.

The Guardswoman came with him as he fell.  Peter dropped his chin toward his chest to protect his head from smacking into the ground, but the same motion shielded him as her forehead slammed into his.  He recognized what she’d been trying to do – pop him in the nose, which would have smarted and stung enough to at least partially disable him – but his shift instead
produce a resounding crack of bone on bone.

Squinting through the pain and dizziness, hoping she was as affected as he was, Peter hooked one of his legs around hers and rolled.  She wasn’t as disabled as he wanted; she went with the roll, tumbling them both over in a full rotation across the grass to come up still atop him. 
His rifle, slung behind him, dug against his upper back painfully.  He felt her twist her right arm free of his grasp and automatically threw his available arm up across his face at an angle as he ducked his head over.

Her punch hammered into the ground next to him
, and she grunted as he smashed his elbow against her wrist.  Peter kneed her in the kidney as a distraction and feinted a jab at her face.  She reflexively blocked, and he bucked his hips to dislodge her.  Crawford came off him a little, up to one knee still astride him, and that gave him just enough of an angle to bring a leg up and around the front of her midsection.  Grunting from the strain of muscles unused to the flexibility he was demanding of them, Peter managed to power her back and down using his leg.

She went down, and he locked his ankles around her to complete the scissors hold.
  Crawford punched his left thigh twice, hard.  Peter tightened his leg lock as he heaved himself to a sort of sitting position with abdominal muscles that complained from the strain.  Then he saw stars for the second time as she reached up and decked him across the side of the head.  Her angle wasn’t good, but she still got enough English into the blow to scramble his wits as his skull rolled sideways.

“Knock it the fuck off!” he barked
dizzily as she hit the leg he had across her front midsection again.  He could barely feel anything past the pounding in his head, through the wavering vision that threatened to go fully double.  Dimly he saw his ankles were still locked, and focused on that as best he could.

“I can’t, I can’t . . .” she was panting and screaming as he squeezed at her.  Peter managed to barely intercept a hammer fist she tried to land on his knee, but he couldn’t get hold of her arms as she flailed at him.
  She almost got a shot in on his throat, but he ducked his chin just in time.  The one-two-three combo she put into his ribs went right past his guard, making his breath woosh out painfully.

“Crawford
. . . you’re . . . right!” Peter wheezed loudly.  “Ow . . . knock . . . it off!  He’s . . . not . . . walking.”

“Gunny?”

Peter sucked down a breath, trying to reinflate his lungs.  “I’ve got . . . this.” Peter told Mendez loudly without turning his head.  His knee was tingling from a blow she’d laid across the nerve, but he kept his ankles laced together and tried to keep squeezing on her.  He actually wasn’t sure he
did
have her; she was fast, good, and
pissed
.  He was old, tired, and slower.  “Crawford, he’s not walking!  Stop it solider, now!”

She hit him again,
this time in the sternum, then his words finally penetrated the haze of rage enshrouding her.  Peter managed to recapture her hands as she stared at him wide eyed.

“He’s not . . .” she almost whispered.

“No.  You done?”

Her face was mottled red and white, but she nodded after a few moments.  “Okay.”

“Good.” Peter said cautiously, easing up on the pressure of his scissors lock.  “Now cut this shit out and act like a professional.”

“He’s not walking.”

“He’s not walking.” Peter agreed.  “You done?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” Peter nodded.  He unlaced his legs, flinched as she rolled away from him, but she only came up in a crouch and did nothing further.  Peter kept his groan off his face as he shifted onto his knees, then pushed himself warily to his feet.  He was way too old to be rolling around on the ground with someone half his age, even if she was female.  He had a lot of experience with Marine hand-to-hand, but he remembered Swanson had mentioned Crawford did mixed martial arts as a hobby.

His breath was coming painfully, and only an act of will kept him from wincing and letting on how much the fresh bruises hurt. 
Crawford stayed in her crouch, studying him with wide eyes.  Peter was glad the fight was over; hoped it was
really
over.  He didn’t want to have to shoot her, and he was entirely unsure he could subdue her without having to inflict real damage beyond simple bruises.

Or taking a lot of damage himself in the process.  In fact, he was willing to bet on her if they went at it some more.  She was just too damned fast and young for him to be willing to give himself great odds.

“He’s not walking.” Peter repeated.  “But I’m going to talk to the others with him first.”

“When?”

“Now.  Come on.  Just . . . don’t do anything yet.”

Crawford nodded
, and Peter rose.  Turning as she stood, he strode across the grass with her following.  Both stopped a couple yards from where the line of men in suits stood watching.

“I have one question for you.” he said, amazed at how even he was able to make his voice.
His ribs were smarting where Crawford had punched him, he could feel a warm wetness on his lower back, and some sharp pains there as well.  Some of his stiches had probably been pulled loose in the fight.  He ignored that – both the pain as well as the knowledge they were going to have to be redone.  The scars he was going to carry there had just gone from visible to impressive, he knew.  “Who thinks the decision to close this camp was the right one?”

“You’re going to get all those people killed.” Carlson said.

“Shut up.  I already know your answer.” Peter told him.

Carlson opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything when he saw the M45 appear in Peter’s hand.  “Come on, I heard you all voted to put him in charge, so now I want to hear who thinks what he did was what needed to be done.” Peter said, sweeping them with his eyes.

“I wasn’t happy about it.” one of them ventured after a moment.

“Neither was I.” another said.

“Did you do anything?” Peter asked when no one else appeared ready to speak.

“Carlson had all the guns.”

“That’s right, Lieutenant Kinney was backing him.”

“I’m going to make it simple.” Peter said, realizing this could go on for a while.  They were politicians.  They were used to talking their way into and out of all sorts of situations.  Perhaps not quite this dire, but as someone who’d been on the sharp end of the decisions politicians had been making his entire life, he judged that to be a semantic
difference he didn’t care about.  Not now.  Not anymore.  Not now.

“Everyone who agrees the camp shouldn’t have been closed, step over there.” he pointed with the pistol at a spot about ten yards to the right, near the families.

Peter was slightly surprised all of them actually had the nerve to move where he pointed.  He would have figured at least a couple would’ve stuck by Carlson, but no one appeared willing to.  When they were all clustered at the spot, he nodded.

“Here’s my offer.  Even assuming you’re telling the truth – that you’d do it differently if you could go back and change things – you still let all this happen.  You helped make it possible.  I can’t see any way past that, but I’m not going to do more than just point out you disgust me.  Me and everyone here who’ve lost someone are going to find that a hard thing to forgive.  Some might, but I know I can’t, and I know not everyone else will be able to either.

“So you can go.  Just leave.  Take your families and start walking.  Go wherever you want and don’t come back.  While you’re looking for the safety your actions denied thousands, think on what you’ve done.  I hope you’ll find a place where people who aren’t under the burden of your guilt will take you in, but that’s up to you and them.”

“On foot?” one of them asked, sounding incredulous.

“Unarmed?” another asked.

“On foot
, with the clothes on your back.” Peter confirmed.  “Some of the refugees who arrived here, and were turned away, were in exactly the same condition.  So if you want to live past the next few minutes, start walking.  But know this.  A lot of the people here walked right past you on their way in yesterday.  I know who you are.  Most of my soldiers know who you are.  Ms. Sawyer knows who you are, and one of her duties as the coordinator is maintaining a census of who’s sheltering here.

“If you think you can maybe squat somewhere in town for a little while, then slip back in as just another refugee, you’re mistaken.  I thought about letting Crawford here carve something into your foreheads, and believe me she’s fucking crazy enough to do it happily, but it strikes me that might be a level of barbarism you’re all intelligent enough to not make necessary.

“So leave.  This is your chance to atone, but it’s going to happen not here.  Not anywhere near here.  If I or any of my people spot you in town just hanging around, you won’t survive to explain why.  By the day after tomorrow there’s no reason we should see any of you again, not even if you’re walking when we do.  Just go and keep going until you’re far from Cumming.”

Peter regarded them coldly for a moment.  “Anyone want to stay and get what he’s got coming?” he asked, flicking his head at Carlson.