Before Marcus could do anything, he received another call over the radio. Lily asked him and Maya to join her at her area. He'd just finished getting the others settled in, showing them around the place and where they would be sleeping. When the call from Lily came through, he made his excuses and hurried back through the truck stop, wondering just what in the hell was going to go wrong this time.
What else possibly could at this point?
He supposed that a ton of things could.
He and Maya entered Lily's radio area at about the same time and he saw that she was wearing a worried expression as well.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I've just received a call from Sergeant Tan. He's asking for you two to meet him at the north bridge that leads over to Fairfield. He says something big is happening, he also said you should bring guns, lots of them...do you know what he's talking about?" Lily replied, sounding nervous.
"Not specifically, but he said he might need our help for something big...I guess this is that. Keep everyone on alert, just in case," Marcus replied.
"Let's go see what he's bullshitting about," Maya said.
They went over to the supply station, stocked up on bullets and anything else they thought they'd need. Marcus swapped out his machete for a brand new crowbar someone had found out in the field and dropped off. He stocked up on ammo for his pistol, then grabbed one of only two shotguns they had in stock and stuffed his pockets with ammo for it. If someone like Sergeant Tan was telling them to bring lots of guns, chances were he knew what the hell he was talking about. He noticed Maya gearing up as well.
Once they had their supplies, they headed outside, got into one of the SUVs and drove off, making for Fairfield.
"What do you think it is?" Marcus asked.
"I don't know, but it must have something to do with Fairfield. That's supposed to be where the Army had their headquarters this whole time. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe they got overrun and he wants some help," Maya replied.
"Maybe they're finally fucking ready to offer us a way out of here," Marcus said.
Maya snorted. "I'm so sure."
They drove out of Marshall and along the road, passing the Grange and waving to whoever was on guard duty in the watchtower. They drove past the south gate of Fairfield, which had been closed off some time ago with an immense steel gate, erected by the military. After passing another warehouse, they followed the river up the road to the north gate, where they saw a collection of black SUVs and a half-dozen soldiers.
As they pulled up, Marcus could hear shouting.
He got out.
"Come on you goat-fucking sons of bitches! Open the fucking gate! I'm not even sick you fuckers! Man gets a cough from living in fucking third world conditions for a month, course he would! OPEN THE FUCKING GATE!"
Marcus and Maya approached. It was Eric shouting. The other soldiers looked uncomfortable. He started shouting again, staring up at a watchtower erected just behind the gate that was clearly empty. Nobody and nothing moved beyond the gate. His shouting was interrupted by a thick, racking cough that sounded familiar.
It was the same cough that Pastor Will had had.
"There's nobody up there," Marcus said as he came to stand behind Eric.
The man spun around, seemingly startled, then he sighed and shook his head. "No fucking shit," he replied. "I was waiting for you to show up."
"So what's going on?" Maya asked.
Eric coughed for a few seconds more, hawked and spat. "Bullshit, is what's happening. I haven't had contact with command for two solid days now. Haven't had contact with fucking anyone. So I'm going to go and see with my own eyes just what, exactly, the hell is going on up there. I thought you might like to see."
"Yeah, we would," Marcus said.
"Great. Get back, we're going to blast through. Murphy, get on it!" he snapped.
One of the soldiers snapped a quick 'yes, Sergeant!' and hustled up to the gate with an armful of something. Marcus and Maya fell back to their SUV, backing it up to what Maya said should be a safe distance. They waited, watching in rapt silence as Murphy, who Marcus imagined, (and hoped), was a demolitions expert, worked. Finally, he stood up and fell back with the others. They all crouched behind their black SUVs.
"Fire in the hole!"
A great explosion ripped through the air. Even inside the car it was loud. Marcus and Maya got out as the smoke cleared.
"Come on, let's get a move on. That was sure to draw a lot of them in," Eric said.
There was no arguing with that.
The hole they'd blown was just big enough to get their SUVs through, so they got into the back of one of the black military SUVs with Eric in the front seat. The other soldiers piled into the second vehicle and they drove through the hole and onto the bridge that crossed the river. Marcus felt a feeling of slow dread begin to build as they rolled into Fairfield. He was familiar with it, since you had to drive through it if you wanted to come into the valley at all. It was a small town, just a few stores, maybe a dozen or so houses and the fairgrounds.
They drove through the silent town, passing the occasional zombie. Eric kept reaching out over the radio, trying to get into contact with command, warning them that he had breached the perimeter and was on approach to HQ.
But they received no reply.
None at all.
"There it is," Eric muttered.
They drove up to a collection of tents, sandbag walls and shacks, all collected behind a chainlink fence that had been pushed over in some places. All of this had been built across a trio of parking lots wrapped around a pair of large warehouses that the military had obviously appropriated for their operations.
"Shit," Eric muttered as he killed the engine. "Looks totally fucking dead."
They all got out of the SUVs. "Make sure your guns are ready," Eric said. "We're going to go in there and figure out what happened."
Marcus took it all in as he followed Eric, his soldiers and Maya in through what seemed to be a main gate. They walked past abandoned machine gun turrets entrenched behind curved walls of sandbags and into a large, open lot ringed with tents and shacks. At the back of it was the huge gray bulk of one of the warehouses.
"Split up," Eric said. "See what you can find."
They did, though Marcus and Maya stuck together. They moved over to one of the large, canvas tents that flapped ominously in the winds. Overhead, the skies were becoming gray, threatening rain. Marcus kept his shotgun in hand as he peered cautiously inside. There was no one, alive or undead, inside. Just a handful of foldout tables and chairs scattered with papers and supplies. It looked like whoever had been here had cleared out in a hurry. They found nothing relevant inside, so they moved on to the next tent.
This one had a dead soldier in it. It looked like the man had been on the verge of becoming a zombie, or had been particularly ill with Black Fever, and someone had shot him in the head. It took them another ten minutes of silent searching before Marcus and Maya finally came across something worthwhile.
"Sergeant!" Maya called.
There was a survivor, lying in a cot, barely conscious. A young man in sweat-soaked, torn, bloodied fatigues. Eric and some of the others soldiers hurried over. Marcus stepped back, out of the way, to let Eric in.
"Christ," he muttered. "What's your name, son?" he asked.
"PFC Osmond," he replied weakly.
"What happened here, Osmond?"
"Everyone pulled out...the disease, it's everywhere now. All over. The valley isn't important anymore. They killed everyone who was sick or left them behind..."
Suddenly, he went limp, his expression slack, and his last breath left him in a slow sigh. In a horrible way, he sounded relieved.
"Shit," Eric muttered. He pulled out his pistol and shot the man in the head. There was something disturbingly mechanical about the motion. "Keep him from turning," he muttered. "Come on, let's get out of this tent."
They followed him back out into the gray sunlight.
"Now what?" Marcus asked. "If the virus is everywhere and we're stuck here in this valley...what's the point?"
"We have to at least leave the valley," Eric said. He sounded resolute, but the effect was largely lost when he degenerated in a thick, racking cough. "Okay, look, Marcus, Maya...I'm going to get a plan together to get out of here. It's going to be ready to go before the end of the day. We're getting out of here. Go gather everyone you can, everyone who will join you, and bring them up here. By the time you're done, we should be ready."
Marcus looked at Maya. "Well...you wanted to talk about leaving the valley," she said. "It seems like this is our opportunity."
"You sure? You don't think we might be safer here?" Marcus replied.
Maya laughed. "When have you ever known me to take the 'safe and sure' option? You heard him, we can't stay here. We have to get out of this valley. I'm sure we can convince the others...which we should get to doing. You sure you can get your plan together, Eric?"
"Pretty sure," he replied. "I'll let you know if I can't."
"Okay. Let's move," Maya said.
Convincing everyone wasn't exactly as easy as Marcus had hoped.
He called a meeting of every single person in their enclave. There were thirteen, including himself. Marcus looked over them all, and then he laid down the situation as it was for them as plainly and clearly as he could.
"So this is it, everyone," he said. "Maya and I think we should we take our chance and leave the valley. What I think we should do first is take a vote. Who votes to leave?"
Jacob, Ed, Karen, Evelyn, Dan and Dennis all voted that they should take the chance and leave. Lily, Logan, Daisy, Richard and Laura all voted to stay.
"Okay, why do you think we should stay?" he asked.
"We're safe here," Lily replied. "I mean, it's basically the apocalypse out there. We have control of this valley now, pretty much. Why not stay? Staying here, we could eventually take the valley back, eventually kill all the zombies, probably, maybe get other people to come here..."
"And how do we know that this place isn't planned for carpet bombing by the military because it's a hot zone? I'm sure Danforth certainly is. How long before those ten million zombies wander over this way?" Maya replied.
Lily frowned, her certainty slipping. "I hadn't thought of that..." she admitted.
Marcus pressed the foothold Maya had gained. "We have no idea what could be out there. There could be safe zones, certainly better, more defensible areas than a valley. And, I imagine, most of us have family out there, people that we might want to try and track down and see if they're still alive..." He knew this last part was very true for him.
That also seemed to sway some of the others.
After a bit more conversation, they took another vote.
This time, everyone voted to leave.
"Good, let's get packing. I'm going to take a drive up to Alice Miller's farm and the Grange and see if I can't convince them," Marcus said.
"I'll come with you," Maya replied, "I can be fairly persuasive."
As it turned out, they didn't need to be all that persuasive.
After getting everyone started packing up all of their reasonably portable gear and supplies into a small convoy of vehicles, Marcus and Maya drove out to Alice Miller's farm. She greeted them at the door and when she did, Marcus noticed that she seemed less certain of herself as she had been the previous times he'd spoken with her.
"What can I do for you?" she asked, letting him into the house.
They found Doc Hanson and Sam Haney sitting in the living room.
Marcus looked at the three of them, then he laid it out for them. He explained the situation: the Army, the worldwide plague, the dwindling resources of the valley and the potential of millions more zombies headed their way. The three of them took all of this in quietly and eventually Marcus ran out of things to say.
Finally, it was, of all of them, Doc Hanson who spoke up first. "I know I always said that I'd die in Trumbull Valley but...well, sometimes, a man has to admit when he's licked. And dammit, I'm sure as hell licked. This valley is dead, and staying here would be joining it in its death. You can be sure I'll be joining you Marcus, Maya," he said.
Alice Miller sighed. "Well, when you put it like that..." She shook her head, then shrugged. "We'll start packing up and meet you at your truck stop."
Marcus smiled.
It was all coming together.
He didn't even have to stop at the Grange.
Apparently, Lily contacted them on the radio and told them about the situation. As it turned out, none of them were too eager to stick around the valley, either. After that, as Marcus and Maya drove back, Lily began putting the word out, trying to reach anyone who might be alive but hidden that the time to leave was now.
They returned to the truck stop and started helping everyone pack up. Nearly two hours passed. By then, Alice Miller and those left at her enclave had showed up as well and had joined in helping everyone pack.
Marcus' radio crackled to life suddenly.
"Marcus...I may have overestimated my ability to put together my plan." It was Eric Tan.
Marcus looked at Maya, sighed, pulled out his radio. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"If you want to escape this place, bring Maya and two of your best people back up to the Army base. I'm going to need some help."