Instead, Nick found only warm meals, comfortable sleeping arrangements, and pleasant people trying to survive. It would be as good a place as any to introduce the cure. Revealing it would have to be delicate, and he needed more time before he was ready.
“Sorry, Nick. I’ve been going over these plans for hours. There’s a place nearby I want to grab supplies from, but I need tomake sure everything is in order. What’s up?” Marcus folded the map and set his notes aside as he gave his attention to Nick.
“I was just coming by to thank you for letting us in and see if there’s anything you need help with,” Nick said. It felt rude to cut to the chase, so he resorted to small talk.
“It’s no problem at all. What kind of people would we be if we kept all that we have here to ourselves? As far as helping, there’ll be a shipment coming in from our scouting party tomorrow. If you’d like to help unload the trucks, that would be cool.”
“Yeah, of course,” Nick said. He folded his hands across his chest. The men shared a moment of uncomfortable silence.
“Marcus, I want to know what happened here. Where’s the government? What happened to the higher-ups? Every area seems to be an island, with no word from anyone in charge,” Nick said.
Marcus sighed and leaned back in his chair. The question did not seem to aggravate him, though his body language told Nick he was in for a wild retelling of events.
“We encountered the disease before there was word of it on the news. Not much longer, but long enough that people suffered. It happened in phases too quickly to manage with rational thought. At first, we thought we had a murderer on our hands. Then, two? More people killing people. Maybe it was a riot or cult killings. We were cleaning up bodies and detaining killers faster than we could manage. Finally, we were informed that something medical was happening to these people. Virus, disease, contamination—I can’t recall the exact words used. We started separating groups of people and locking them away like damn prisoners. Even if we could determine they were unaffected, we couldn’t let them loose in an unsafe community.” Marcus fiddled with the edge of a piece of paper and took a breath before continuing.
“NIH told us to quarantine anyone who was showing symptoms. The Department of Defense had every fort on lockdown. Chain of command was giving us orders to eliminate anyone showing signs. We were barraged with so many instructions, most of them conflicting, that it was difficult to say what the right move was. The last bit of information regarding the source of the disease was that it had to do with contaminated meat. We threw it all out and finally managed some semblance of order in this place. The number of infected residents was down to a minimum. We had increased the number of guards around the gate and started to fortify the walls. Communication with the higher-ups was sporadic at best. We were operating only to stay alive and nothing else. Citizens from nearby began to trickle in, asking for refuge. That’s when Yara decided we needed an intake system.
“One order that came through said to abandon our post here. We had taken in so many citizens; it would have left them for dead. We ignored it. Another order told us to stand our ground but deny entry to anyone, regardless of who it was. Can you imagine us turning people away? Mothers. Children. People who had lost their loved ones and were alone. Unfortunately, there was a small group of soldiers here who thought that was the way. They were always wary about taking people in. At times, they were outright defiant about it. When a group of survivors approached the gates, they started shooting into the crowd, determined to take them out. Yara and I, we disposed of them. The ones that surrendered, we had to send away. We had to. Not because of any military directives. Hell, according to the DoD, we were mutinous. But the DoD wasn’t present in the flesh, and we did what we had to do because it was right. Our hearts and minds demanded we end anyone unwilling to help those in need of a safe place. It’s funny to think about now. There were days Yara and I feared that we would be court-martialed and facejail time. But as the days passed and the world went to shit, we focused our efforts on building a safe zone. Fort Vanguard could’ve been a place well-guarded by a small group of heartless heathens, sitting on resources and supplies no one else could obtain. Instead, we made it safe and welcome. I’d venture to say it’s thriving, and the people here, the ones who have been here all along or the ones that came in a couple of days ago, are all at the heart of it.”
Nick quietly processed the information piece by piece. He wondered if the government had died out or if all those tasked with being in charge of the American people were hiding out in the mountains with ample supplies. Nick yearned for answers.
He chose to focus on the answers in front of him. Marcus’s story told him far more about the man himself than it did about the state of the world. The leader of Fort Vanguard could have fabricated the entire tale. Yet the way his jaw tensed when he spoke of securing this community and his shallow breaths when he imagined innocent survivors being shot, nudged Nick into accepting Marcus as an ally, for the time being.
Chapter 12
Kate entered the commons area, her head swiveling around until her gaze landed on Yara talking with an older woman. The short, gray-haired woman carried a stack of blankets, and they shared a laugh just before Yara stepped past her, walking in the opposite direction.
“Yara!” Kate called out. Yara’s stiff, confident stride carried on as Kate’s attempt to get her attention fell short. “Yara!” Kate shouted again, and this time, Yara stopped where she stood, turning her head to the side. Kate jogged a few steps until she was beside her.
“Hey, Yara. Sorry, I was just wondering if you’ve seen Nick,” Kate said.
“Yeah, he passed through here a little bit ago. Check the gym,” Yara answered with a curt smile.
“Thank you,” Kate said.
Kate walked back across the open square through the groups of people chatting and exchanging goods. She turned a corner and opened the double doors leading to the training building. The hallway past the doors was ongoing, cavernous, and rifewith linoleum. It reminded Kate of the school gyms, and for a moment, she swore there was a hint of sweat and basketball rubber mixed into the odor of the air.
Kate opened the third door down, the boxing ring with its red ropes coming into sight first, followed by the sounds of something thwacking against muffled plastic. When she pushed the door open to its entirety, Nick was in the far corner, sparring with a punching bag.
With his knees bent slightly and his hands curled into fists, Nick circled around the bag with measured steps. Huffs of exerted breaths escaped him each time he took a deadly swing. Every few strikes were broken up with a kick, sending the punching bag swinging around in the air.
When Nick saw Kate from the corner of his eye, he straightened up. The tension and focus loosened from his expression.
“Training for something?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, gotta stay fit. You keep me on my toes,” Nick answered, grinning. Kate frowned.
“It’s worth it though, right?” Kate wondered, her tone tinged with insecurity. Nick’s grin widened. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into him, kissing the top of her head. Heat radiated from beneath his clothes, damp with perspiration. A trickle of sweat slid down one temple.
“‘Worth it’ doesn’t even come close.”
Kate beamed. Every time doubt encroached on her self-esteem, Nick knew exactly how to shatter it.
“Marcus was looking for you. A shipment of weapons and gear came in. He was hoping you’d help sort things out.” Kate informed.
“Cool, I’ll head to him in about ten minutes. Just let him know if you see him,” Nick responded. Kate nodded, smiled, and turned to walk away. Before she could take a step, Nickgrabbed her wrist. Gently, he pulled her back to him. His blue eyes blanketed her, washing over every detail and inhaling her essence, her presence.
Strings of words, fragments of sentences piled up behind Nick’s lips. He would train every day. He would go back to the battlefield, any battlefield. He would thrust himself into the theatres of war if it meant keeping Kate safe, keeping her to himself. Instead of voicing thoughts that predicated ominous scenarios, Nick pressed his lips to hers, silencing his doomsday notions in an interpretive dance that should deliver the same dedication he longed to translate to her.
