He forgot all that when he saw the bruising on Stacy's underarms. He reached gently for her arms to get a better look, and she recoiled. Her face became a rictus of abject terror.
"Stacy," he asked softly, "it's all right now. You're safe.
"Did someone attack you?"
Corporal Elliot's jaw was working as she silently observed. She knew where this was going. A burning apprehension was building in her breast.
There had been two sexual assaults reported in the city since the year began. The victims were women, both grabbed in an isolated area of town, both raped from behind while their assailant whispered vile threats. Neither could identify him. But they both thought it was a soldier.
Of course they did.
Was there any proof? A shred of evidence? No. It could just as well be a longtime resident of Jefferson Harbor…but Elliot's pride would only take her so far before her common sense stepped on the brakes.
The soldiers were the ones in control, the soldiers were empowered to protect civilians from the rotters and each other. And soldiers whose psyches were bent and frayed by the horror of modern combat sometimes took out their frustration in unspeakable ways. There wasn't a counselor or chaplain in sight to speak to; prescription meds were out of the question in the field. It was all blood and rain and the endless, fruitless battle against the undead.
Was it really fruitless? The corporal asked herself. Did she believe that they were at a stalemate against the rotters — or worse, that they were losing?
Who could say, really? She only knew what was going on with this unit. The radio propaganda from the north wasn't informative in the least. She knew there was talk among the ranks, again, of a possible withdrawal. Did that constitute a stalemate? Or was it merely surrendering to the dead and retreating?
(They'll follow us you know they will)
Stacy Bekins looked as if she'd already surrendered her sanity.
Voorhees noticed that her jeans were zipped but not buttoned. Her shirt, untucked, had a few stains on the front, but they were faded…
She'd walked back to the museum from the scene of the rape and sat there in the rain, trying to wash her body and mind clean.
"Was it just one man?" Voorhees asked. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She stared past him still, until her lip began to tremble controllably. Then she looked away.
"Stacy," Elliot whispered, "would you feel more comfortable talking alone with me?"
"I need to be here to take her statement." Voorhees muttered. Elliot frowned. "Come on."
"It's nothing personal, Corporal-"
"It's nothing but personal, Patrol Officer." Elliot nodded toward Stacy, the girl's white-knuckled hands clasped in her lap, eyes glued to the window. Voorhees didn't have any female officers.
"I…I'll stand outside." He turned away before Elliot could respond and stepped out of the Hummer.
Back in the rain. Pulling his walkie-talkie from his trench coat, he tuned it to the band reserved exclusively for his officers. Didn't want any of the Army grunts listening in. "Wood, what's your twenty?"
"Sir. Heading south through Midtown Park."
"Good, meet me at the museum entrance. Looks like we've got another two-six-oh. Weisman, you get all that?"
"Yes sir." Mike Weisman was acting as dispatcher back at the PD. He'd have to record the shift's radio traffic by hand. It was a bitch, which was one of the reasons Voorhees often did it himself; that, and he couldn't read the chicken scratch that half of his officers used.
"You want me out there?" Weisman asked through static. He'd interviewed the last two victims. Voorhees responded, "No, you stay put. We'll compare notes later on."
"Copy that."
P.O. Wood slipped and stumbled as he rounded the corner of the museum. Voorhees waved him over to the Humvee. "Corporal Elliot's in there trying to calm her nerves. It's Stacy Bekins from the PX, looks like the attack just happened. I want you to go in there and get her work schedule. Find out if she was there today."
Wood nodded and hustled across the street. Elliot propped open the Hummer's passenger door. "Officer?"
He stepped back into the vehicle, out of the harsh weather and into a young girl's relived nightmare.
It was hours later, with the sun parting the storm clouds, when Voorhees headed to the Greeley district of town to make his rounds. The residential area was right beside the eastern wall, and though soldiers frequently patrolled the streets, people still liked to see a familiar face out there. He knocked on the front door of the Stanton house. Their boy was sick with a cold.
"How's he doing?" Voorhees asked when mother Marie opened up. She smiled. "A couple of soldiers brought us some medicine. They paid for it themselves down at the PX. Wasn't that nice?"
"It sure was." He felt a twinge of shame at being unable to provide the same services himself. The Harbor Medical Plaza's pharmacies had been emptied out, mostly by looters, and the rest was now housed in the PD's basement, but supplies were running low.
"Cody's feeling much better," Marie continued. "Once he's fully recovered from that bug, I think…well, we're talking about leaving."
"Where will you go?" Voorhees asked. "Haven't you heard?" She replied excitedly. "It was on the radio this morning. The Senate passed a new bill-"
"Hey there Voorhees." Bill Stanton stepped out from behind the door and gestured for the P.O. to come in. "You want a drink? This Army shit almost tastes like water, you should try it."
"Bill." Marie said scoldingly. Her husband grinned and pulled Voorhees in by his shoulder. "Take a load off for a few minutes."
Twelve-year-old Cody was on the couch in the living room, covered by a blanket. There were a couple of chairs for the adults, and on a table across the room, patriotic hymns played softly on the family radio.
Voorhees took a chair and waved to Cody. "What's this I just heard from your wife?" He called over his shoulder. "About a Senate bill?"
"It's the withdrawal," Bill said with a sort of shrug. "Passed unanimously. It starts in a couple of weeks."
"They want to have everyone out of the badlands by July." Marie said, tucking the blanket in around Cody's legs and feet. "By the badlands, they mean here, and everywhere else outside of the 'New Great Lakes area'."
"So they've redrawn our borders again?" Voorhees smirked and shook his head. Invisible lines that the rotters paid no mind to. He hadn't paid much mind to them either; few people had, in fact, in the beginning. When the Senate started designating areas of the country as "uninhabitable", there had been protests from the cities still standing in those areas. Of course, the cities fell without any federal support. Then, the Senate declared over the airwaves that they'd been right, and more people started listening. And so it went: the government continued erasing and redrawing America's lines, abandoning the East and West Coasts, abandoning the U.S.-Mexico border, abandoning those who had seen their nation helplessly eroding and who had decided that they wouldn't give up their "uninhabitable" communities while they were still breathing.
But this withdrawal, this was something much bigger. As Bill and Marie described it, the government was giving up all but seven states — and even then, to call those complete states was an exaggeration.
(Had Elliot known about any of this when he'd talked to her earlier?…)
"They say they have enough room up there for everybody." Bill sipped lukewarm water from a plastic bottle. "They say we're spread out too much right now for their support to do any good."