“Crazy must run in the family,” Lee grumbled.
At last they came out to a paved road, and suddenly the land looked familiar, the exact same spot where Forrest and his community were camped when they had taken him prisoner back in the spring.
Smoke wafting up and streaming away from a stove rigged up inside the community firehouse promised warmth; the ragtag array of old RVs and camping trailers ringed in tightly around the firehouse, which was the community center.
Why these people still elected to stay here again filled John with wonder. Half a dozen miles away, there had once been a luxury resort of million-dollar vacation homes, complete with its own airstrip, all of it abandoned. He could see their side of it, though, for this, after all, was their land going back 150 years or more. Forrest and his friends had grown up in these valleys, knew every trail, and though game was all but completely hunted out along the south slopes of the mountains, over here a skillful hunter, especially when tracking in winter, could still find deer and bear, as clearly evident by the two bucks, gutted and skinned, hanging up outside the fire station.
Forrest pulled up in front of the fire station, a small crowd of well-wishers coming out to greet him. John recognized more than a few, former enemies who had joined their side in the confrontation with Fredericks. There were polite handshakes, a few inquiring as to his wife and her health, and thanks for the help she had extended when so many had been injured.
John peeled off his ice-covered ski mask, unable to conceal that he was still shaking, and someone immediately led him into the fire station, an elderly woman shouting for the crowd to let him warm up while she handed out hot mugs of—what else—yet more coffee, which, though scalding hot, John downed in several long gulps, sighing with relief, luxuriating in the warmth within the building.
“How’s our guest doing?” Forrest asked.
His question was greeted with silence, and John felt a wave of dread. The old woman who had handed him coffee finally spoke up.
“He died during the night.”
“Son of a bitch.” Lee sighed, looking over at John, who sat down, shaking his head.
“We should have gotten him to the hospital,” Forrest finally said, “but with the storm coming on…”
His voice trailed off into silence.
“Have you buried him yet?” John asked.
The old woman shook her head and nodded to a side room of the fire station. John stood up and followed her while unzipping his snowmobile suit; being inside felt stiflingly hot after so many freezing hours to get to this futile conclusion. He inwardly cursed. If Forrest only lived next to I-26, they could have easily transported him in a truck down to Asheville before the storm set in.
The old woman opened the door, and John felt a slight wave of nausea. How his wife ever handled the daily exposure to all the scents of a hospital ward was beyond him. It smelled like a sickroom, and he wondered if there was the first faint whiff of decay in the air. The body still rested on the bed the poor man had died in, covered by a sheet.
John drew the sheet back. No matter how many times he had seen the face of death, it still struck at him. It was said that pneumonia was “the old man’s quiet friend,” but it was obvious that the final hours must have been a terrible struggle; the man’s face was contorted, eyes still open, features ashen gray.
“I’m sorry. I should have taken care of him, washed and laid him out proper before I let you in here,” the elderly woman escorting him whispered, and she reached over with gentle fingers to close the dead man’s eyes and tried to wipe away the grimace, though rigor mortis had already set in.
“I know this man.” John sighed, gazing intently. “I remember him from the War College. I think he was on my friend’s staff.”
John pulled up a chair and sat down as Forrest and Lee came into the room.
“I knew him,” John said again, “not well, just one of those staff types always standing a few feet behind and to the side of a general.”
He struggled to dredge up more of a memory. The world before the Day was filled with so many memories, so many of them now hazy, distorted, washed over and replaced by the trauma of the last three years. The dead man before him was one of thousands of memories. Perhaps they had sat in on a conference together, maybe shared a drink with others. Wasn’t there a military history conference at the War College where he had given a lecture?
If so, it wasn’t noteworthy enough to remember right now, and that in itself struck him as tragic. Another life had disappeared; who and what he was John could barely remember. Did he have a family still alive that treasured him and would want to know his fate?
“Did he have any papers, military ID, anything like that on him?”
Forrest shook his head. “No wallet, nothing. The guy was pretty well beaten up when we found him, muttered something about getting jumped by marauders on the far side of the pass for Interstate 26.”
“He had several busted ribs, a lot of bruises, cracked jaw, and nearly out of his head when Forrest brought him in,” the old woman said, and as she spoke, she gently reached out to smooth the man’s hair back from his forehead, a maternal gesture that touched John.
“Janet here was a nurse; you remember her sister Maggie, who took care of you when you first came to visit us?” Forrest said.
Visit. John smiled at that. When he was captured, with a busted rib as well, Maggie was the first person to show him sympathy. Maggie was gone, killed in the air strike back in the spring.
“Your sister was an angel,” John said, “and thank you for seeing to this man. Did he say anything to you about how he got here and why?”
“Not much I could understand. He kept asking for you, sir. Said he had served with a friend of yours—Bob Scales.”
There was a sudden leap of hope. On the Day, John had actually been talking to Bob, who had called because it was Jennifer’s twelfth birthday. In the final seconds of that conversation, Bob began to cut the friendly chat short, his tone changing, saying, “Something is going on here,” and then the connection went dead.
For nearly three years now, he’d wondered what had happened to his old friend. Was he still alive? Did the man lying on the cot know the answer, and perhaps even more important, why had he come here?
“Had served with Bob Scales”—and John hesitated—“or was now serving?”
“I’m sorry, sir; he kept drifting in and out.”
“Janet, it’s John, please. Now try to remember everything he said.”
Forrest left the room and returned a moment later carrying a couple of folding chairs, deftly opening them.