Hope Kills (Blight, Jordie POV, 1/1)
Jordie braces his hands against the dash. The HLVW’s front plow crunches into the tail end of a long-dead SUV, rolls it up and to the side. Glass shatters, metal bends.
The sun is low on the horizon.
The sign by the highway says Richardson, Next 3 Exits.
He doesn’t have to check his map to know they’re close. So fucking close. Twenty miles or so. Probably two days driving, as much as the tight-packed traffic is slowing them down.
“Not gonna make it there tonight,” Vic says from the back seat of the Heavy Logistics Vehicle. He’d thought she was asleep, eyes closed and the weight of her rifle across her chest. “Might as well choose a spot to stop before the spot chooses us.”
Jordie grits his teeth. He feels like Jamie is so close he can touch him. Like if he gets there a day later it’ll be a day too late. But she’s right. Nothing he can do will get them there today, and it’s not safe to push through in the dark. He pulls out his radio.
“Forward scouts, let’s look for a place to put ‘er down,” he says, waits for their echoing responses that they got the order.
They pull off at a big office building, twenty-stories tall or more, acres of empty parking lot around it. Good sight-lines, nice level ground.
They pull off and get settled, six big vehicles and the lighter bikes in a close circle, every one placed with room to pull out if they need to go in a hurry. Vic makes sure her grandkids get fed and know where they’re sleeping and then she goes back to where Jordie is setting up the watch perch. She trades her body armor for a light jacket, the AR-17 for a more compact, lightweight weapon.
“You see something?” Jordie asks. Vic is old as his mom, but she’s one of their best people. Night-vision that’s just about uncanny, an attention to detail that’s saved their asses more than once. She’s been with them since Des Moines, her and the grandkids. Says she’ll stick until they find a better home than a military caravan, but Jordie thinks (hopes) she’ll be too picky to leave them.
She shakes her head to his question. “Thought I’d scout ahead. See if the highway is the smoothest way through or if some of the side-roads look better. We’re coming up on that intersection. Thought it might be easier to go around than through.”
He nods. She does this, makes her own orders. She’s come back enough times that he’s stopped worrying about her when she does.
===========
There isn’t an easier way, and the caravan clears the overpass where 75 and 635 do their impression of two snakes fucking, through shit construction clogged with cars who’d tried to cut through. They come on an ambulance, and take the time to clear it, taking everything that’s not contaminated by the rotten corpse in the back.
They camp again, technically in the city limits, and Jordie thinks he could take one of the motorcycles, could make it in the dark. Vic would help, he lies to himself (she would smack him and tell him not to be so fucking dumb. He doesn’t suggest it.)
He lies awake on the top of the truck, listening to the night patrol, to the wild birds and animals. Coyotes howl and he feels very small in the big quiet.
Hope kills, he tells himself over and over. Hope kills; he knows it for a fact, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Jamie isn’t there. If Jamie couldn’t wait for him.
===========
They make Dallas the next day, Jordie driving the road-breaker, wrestling the HLVW’s wheel as they bully cars and light trucks off of the highway. An 18-wheeler blocks the way, wedged in crooked and half on top of half a dozen smaller vehicles and they head up the ramp to the access road, cut over an overpass to drive south on a northbound lane.
There’s nobody alive to honk at them.
They pick up gas from cans that Vic left to siphon when she was out scouting. Get as far on this side of the highway as they can before they turn for the overpass that’ll take them back to the west side.
They’re crossing, following the foot-scouts when Turien raises a hand to halt, points down the highway to the next overpass. Jordie looks across and sees two men on a ridiculously small scooter. The strangers see they’re being watched and hunker down behind the railing. They don’t look armed, don’t raise a weapon.
He puts on the manual brake, shifts the HLVW into neutral and stands up through the hatch. Calls out the standard greeting to them, the who-we-are and not-here-for-trouble. He’s not sure they copy, and after a few minutes they do something to their scooter and ride off, weaving through the traffic with enviable ease.
Turien is on his running-board by then and Jordie nods to show he appreciates the look-out. “We keep going,” he says, and Turien nods, stays where he is so they can make better time.
========
The rumble of the HLVW’s engine, the crunch and crush of it hitting and moving cars aside is too loud for the scooter’s motor to cut over, but Jordie sees them, off to the side, and once cutting in front of them like they’re baiting them, trying to draw them down side-streets.
Any other day Jordie would send the bikes around, get them behind whatever ambush the scooter-riders had planned, run the armed and armored heavy vehicles down the middle of it, smash it to pieces.
Today though, he’s going to get to that fucking apartment. He’s going to find out if Jamie’s there, if he’s been able to wait.
“Keep an eye on our flanks,” he tells the rest of the convoy, and Vic deigns to stir, AK-17 slotted through one of the gunports in the side armor.
He thinks he catches a flash of the pale blue scooter as they turn the last corner, the red flash of a tail-light. He doesn’t know if it’s a problem or not, that the guys on the Vespa were headed to the same place he was.
“Bikes, circle around,” he commands, “Discourage them from going out the back but don’t shoot first.”
He slows the HLVW and gives them time to get around before he crawls to a stop and shuts ‘er down.
Some skinny dude in a t-shirt and jeans comes out to the second-story railing above the gate. Jordie pops the roof hatch on the HLVW and stands up in it.
“The fuck do you want?” Skinny yells down, and Jordie has to acknowledge he has some balls.
We’re not here to make trouble,” he says, following procedure even though he wants to storm the place and find his brother. “We are a joint operation of the New Canadian government and the North American Red Cross. Our mission is to contact and establish lines of communication with survivors of the contagion.”
“Yeah? You said hi, now fuck off,” Skinny yells down, shooing the vehicles with his hand like they’re annoying pigeons.
Jordie’s face quirks. More balls than sense then.
“We have medical personnel,” he says, trying to build bridges. Fucking mission. “Food. Water purification. We’d like to work with you. Help you.”
“The fuck did you even find us?” the guy yells down like he didn’t even hear Jordie.
Hope kills. He’s here. Jamie…what kind of chance did he even have? Better to know now than let that ghost of hope dig its way down to his heart.
“I’m looking for somebody,” Jordie says. His breath catches in his chest. “Name’s Jamie Benn.”
The kid on the landing juts his chin up.
“Yeah? I’m Jamie Benn, what do you want?”
Jordie thought he’d hear a no, hear a never-heard-of-him. Not this. Not a fucking like right to his fucking face.
“No,” he says, anger in his voice. “You’re fucking not. Where is he? What happened to him.”
There’s movement behind the kid, and he turns as someone comes up from behind him, another guy, taller, a little bit broader. He tries to reach out and snag him before he can come into sight, but the bigger guy walks through his grab.
“Jordie?” the newcomer asks, leans out over the railing, looking down. “Jordie?” he says, louder.
Jordie looks up. He’d tried to temper his hope with reason. The sight of his little brother kicks the air from his lungs.
“Chubbs?”
The guy, Jamie turns and hits the stairs, and against every bit of his training, Jordie climbs out the roof hatch and down the front of the vehicle, dropping to the ground to the side of the hood. His heart pounds and he feels dizzy, sick with hope, with longing.
They crash into each other, and if Jamie is lighter, leaner than Jordie has ever imagined, he figures he’s on the thin side himself.
“Jordie, Jordie, you came,” Jamie gasps, and Jordie can feel the sob shake through his chest, holds on tight.
“I promised. I promised I’d come. Got here soon as I could.”
He pushes Jamie back so he can see him, so he can really look at him, make sure he’s okay, make sure he’s not some horrible hallucination. He hears his own voice, some joke about Jamie’s nickname and how poorly it fits now, the stupidest of small-talk about the weight he lost in the aftermath of the contagion.
He’s vaguely aware of his people doing what they do to secure an area, Vic picking up his slack and making decisions when they need to be made.
The skinny kid makes eye contact with someone up in the building still, shoots them a thumbs-up.
Jordie raises an eyebrow and Jamie flushes, ducks his head.
“Jordie, this is Tyler. My uh, boyfriend. Tyler, my brother Jordie.”
He’d forgotten the name, the boy that was going to ruin Jamie’s career, fuck his life. The boy that was watching out for Jamie, bringing him good people. Jamie’s second in command, if Jordie’s reading it right.
“The homeless kid? With the dog?”
The kid’s chin tips up again, defiant, and fuck that. Jordie takes the step to close the distance between them, grabs him around the chest in a tight hug. If he’s been here for Jamie, standing between Jamie and a world of shit, going so far as claiming Jamie’s name when an armed force arrives on their step, then Jordie is sure as hell there for him.
“Thank you,” Jordie huffs against his ear, feels Tyler tense at the contact, knows he doesn’t have long before he has to let go. “Jesus, thank you.”
Tyler snorts, but he stops fighting, lets Jordie hold onto him for another three seconds or so before he squirms out.
Hope kills. Except when it doesn’t.
The sun is low on the horizon.
The sign by the highway says Richardson, Next 3 Exits.
He doesn’t have to check his map to know they’re close. So fucking close. Twenty miles or so. Probably two days driving, as much as the tight-packed traffic is slowing them down.
“Not gonna make it there tonight,” Vic says from the back seat of the Heavy Logistics Vehicle. He’d thought she was asleep, eyes closed and the weight of her rifle across her chest. “Might as well choose a spot to stop before the spot chooses us.”
Jordie grits his teeth. He feels like Jamie is so close he can touch him. Like if he gets there a day later it’ll be a day too late. But she’s right. Nothing he can do will get them there today, and it’s not safe to push through in the dark. He pulls out his radio.
“Forward scouts, let’s look for a place to put ‘er down,” he says, waits for their echoing responses that they got the order.
They pull off at a big office building, twenty-stories tall or more, acres of empty parking lot around it. Good sight-lines, nice level ground.
They pull off and get settled, six big vehicles and the lighter bikes in a close circle, every one placed with room to pull out if they need to go in a hurry. Vic makes sure her grandkids get fed and know where they’re sleeping and then she goes back to where Jordie is setting up the watch perch. She trades her body armor for a light jacket, the AR-17 for a more compact, lightweight weapon.
“You see something?” Jordie asks. Vic is old as his mom, but she’s one of their best people. Night-vision that’s just about uncanny, an attention to detail that’s saved their asses more than once. She’s been with them since Des Moines, her and the grandkids. Says she’ll stick until they find a better home than a military caravan, but Jordie thinks (hopes) she’ll be too picky to leave them.
She shakes her head to his question. “Thought I’d scout ahead. See if the highway is the smoothest way through or if some of the side-roads look better. We’re coming up on that intersection. Thought it might be easier to go around than through.”
He nods. She does this, makes her own orders. She’s come back enough times that he’s stopped worrying about her when she does.
===========
There isn’t an easier way, and the caravan clears the overpass where 75 and 635 do their impression of two snakes fucking, through shit construction clogged with cars who’d tried to cut through. They come on an ambulance, and take the time to clear it, taking everything that’s not contaminated by the rotten corpse in the back.
They camp again, technically in the city limits, and Jordie thinks he could take one of the motorcycles, could make it in the dark. Vic would help, he lies to himself (she would smack him and tell him not to be so fucking dumb. He doesn’t suggest it.)
He lies awake on the top of the truck, listening to the night patrol, to the wild birds and animals. Coyotes howl and he feels very small in the big quiet.
Hope kills, he tells himself over and over. Hope kills; he knows it for a fact, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Jamie isn’t there. If Jamie couldn’t wait for him.
===========
They make Dallas the next day, Jordie driving the road-breaker, wrestling the HLVW’s wheel as they bully cars and light trucks off of the highway. An 18-wheeler blocks the way, wedged in crooked and half on top of half a dozen smaller vehicles and they head up the ramp to the access road, cut over an overpass to drive south on a northbound lane.
There’s nobody alive to honk at them.
They pick up gas from cans that Vic left to siphon when she was out scouting. Get as far on this side of the highway as they can before they turn for the overpass that’ll take them back to the west side.
They’re crossing, following the foot-scouts when Turien raises a hand to halt, points down the highway to the next overpass. Jordie looks across and sees two men on a ridiculously small scooter. The strangers see they’re being watched and hunker down behind the railing. They don’t look armed, don’t raise a weapon.
He puts on the manual brake, shifts the HLVW into neutral and stands up through the hatch. Calls out the standard greeting to them, the who-we-are and not-here-for-trouble. He’s not sure they copy, and after a few minutes they do something to their scooter and ride off, weaving through the traffic with enviable ease.
Turien is on his running-board by then and Jordie nods to show he appreciates the look-out. “We keep going,” he says, and Turien nods, stays where he is so they can make better time.
========
The rumble of the HLVW’s engine, the crunch and crush of it hitting and moving cars aside is too loud for the scooter’s motor to cut over, but Jordie sees them, off to the side, and once cutting in front of them like they’re baiting them, trying to draw them down side-streets.
Any other day Jordie would send the bikes around, get them behind whatever ambush the scooter-riders had planned, run the armed and armored heavy vehicles down the middle of it, smash it to pieces.
Today though, he’s going to get to that fucking apartment. He’s going to find out if Jamie’s there, if he’s been able to wait.
“Keep an eye on our flanks,” he tells the rest of the convoy, and Vic deigns to stir, AK-17 slotted through one of the gunports in the side armor.
He thinks he catches a flash of the pale blue scooter as they turn the last corner, the red flash of a tail-light. He doesn’t know if it’s a problem or not, that the guys on the Vespa were headed to the same place he was.
“Bikes, circle around,” he commands, “Discourage them from going out the back but don’t shoot first.”
He slows the HLVW and gives them time to get around before he crawls to a stop and shuts ‘er down.
Some skinny dude in a t-shirt and jeans comes out to the second-story railing above the gate. Jordie pops the roof hatch on the HLVW and stands up in it.
“The fuck do you want?” Skinny yells down, and Jordie has to acknowledge he has some balls.
We’re not here to make trouble,” he says, following procedure even though he wants to storm the place and find his brother. “We are a joint operation of the New Canadian government and the North American Red Cross. Our mission is to contact and establish lines of communication with survivors of the contagion.”
“Yeah? You said hi, now fuck off,” Skinny yells down, shooing the vehicles with his hand like they’re annoying pigeons.
Jordie’s face quirks. More balls than sense then.
“We have medical personnel,” he says, trying to build bridges. Fucking mission. “Food. Water purification. We’d like to work with you. Help you.”
“The fuck did you even find us?” the guy yells down like he didn’t even hear Jordie.
Hope kills. He’s here. Jamie…what kind of chance did he even have? Better to know now than let that ghost of hope dig its way down to his heart.
“I’m looking for somebody,” Jordie says. His breath catches in his chest. “Name’s Jamie Benn.”
The kid on the landing juts his chin up.
“Yeah? I’m Jamie Benn, what do you want?”
Jordie thought he’d hear a no, hear a never-heard-of-him. Not this. Not a fucking like right to his fucking face.
“No,” he says, anger in his voice. “You’re fucking not. Where is he? What happened to him.”
There’s movement behind the kid, and he turns as someone comes up from behind him, another guy, taller, a little bit broader. He tries to reach out and snag him before he can come into sight, but the bigger guy walks through his grab.
“Jordie?” the newcomer asks, leans out over the railing, looking down. “Jordie?” he says, louder.
Jordie looks up. He’d tried to temper his hope with reason. The sight of his little brother kicks the air from his lungs.
“Chubbs?”
The guy, Jamie turns and hits the stairs, and against every bit of his training, Jordie climbs out the roof hatch and down the front of the vehicle, dropping to the ground to the side of the hood. His heart pounds and he feels dizzy, sick with hope, with longing.
They crash into each other, and if Jamie is lighter, leaner than Jordie has ever imagined, he figures he’s on the thin side himself.
“Jordie, Jordie, you came,” Jamie gasps, and Jordie can feel the sob shake through his chest, holds on tight.
“I promised. I promised I’d come. Got here soon as I could.”
He pushes Jamie back so he can see him, so he can really look at him, make sure he’s okay, make sure he’s not some horrible hallucination. He hears his own voice, some joke about Jamie’s nickname and how poorly it fits now, the stupidest of small-talk about the weight he lost in the aftermath of the contagion.
He’s vaguely aware of his people doing what they do to secure an area, Vic picking up his slack and making decisions when they need to be made.
The skinny kid makes eye contact with someone up in the building still, shoots them a thumbs-up.
Jordie raises an eyebrow and Jamie flushes, ducks his head.
“Jordie, this is Tyler. My uh, boyfriend. Tyler, my brother Jordie.”
He’d forgotten the name, the boy that was going to ruin Jamie’s career, fuck his life. The boy that was watching out for Jamie, bringing him good people. Jamie’s second in command, if Jordie’s reading it right.
“The homeless kid? With the dog?”
The kid’s chin tips up again, defiant, and fuck that. Jordie takes the step to close the distance between them, grabs him around the chest in a tight hug. If he’s been here for Jamie, standing between Jamie and a world of shit, going so far as claiming Jamie’s name when an armed force arrives on their step, then Jordie is sure as hell there for him.
“Thank you,” Jordie huffs against his ear, feels Tyler tense at the contact, knows he doesn’t have long before he has to let go. “Jesus, thank you.”
Tyler snorts, but he stops fighting, lets Jordie hold onto him for another three seconds or so before he squirms out.
Hope kills. Except when it doesn’t.