Barren Fields (28 page)

“I’m serious, you should all become Atheists. I mean, look at you, look at your losses. Not just what you lost but how you lost them. Most of you had to watch as your loved ones got violently murdered. A third of you spent your time after that starving and afraid, moving from group to group, and watching countless others die. Then there are the rapes and abuse you endured.”

Simone calls out trying to stop me, but I am too pissed off that we are being threatened by this crowd to let it go and I ignore her

“All of this suffering and abuse was while you prayed fearfully to your all loving, all knowing, and all seeing God, right? And then there is me and my family, the lowly Atheists, the evil nonbelievers. Here we are untouched. And you know what? I just found out my father is alive and well in a boat just off the coast of Oregon here. He made it from Louisiana to Oregon. How he did it I have no idea, but I spoke with him just a few minutes ago. Of course, in your minds we must be evil because what, because God hasn’t chosen to touch us with the gracious love of his destruction that he has shown you people. Well I say
no thank you
to that. If God is real then he obviously show’s favor to us Atheists above those that worship Jesus Christ.”

“You are the Devil,” Jeremiah shouts at me.

“Oh shut up!” I yell back. “I know why you want me to be a demon. You need me to be the Devil because your belief in God made you murder your wife and child.”

Jeremiah lunges at me screaming, but I was expecting it the way he was leaning into my words, and I kicked him in the chest knocking him back and draw my gun on him and anyone else in the crowd that wants to have at me.

“Jeremiah needs every one of you to believe that I am a demon because I am immune,” I yell. “He murdered his wife and daughter after they were bitten, but they weren’t showing any signs of infection. His claiming that this illness is demons allowed him to get away with murdering his own flesh and blood without hesitation or remorse. He was getting away with it too until that day at Wal-Mart, when we explained there were immune people.”

“Shut your mouth,” Jeremiah yells and wants to come at me but is being held back by several people that were on his side. Whether they want to protect me from Jeremiah or him from my bullets I don’t know yet.

“Why don’t you finally tell the truth to all of your
followers
and under the watchful eyes of your Lord,” I say with heavy sarcasm. “After all, I’m sure you believe He is here. If I am immune from exposure to cats and if others are immune also because of cats, then your wife and daughter that owned several cats were probably immune as well, and you just murdered them.”

“Eddie, that’s enough,” Gayle says. “You made your point, but you weren’t with us then. We all thought these were demons and didn’t know about immunity then.”

“Sure, I wasn’t with you then, but you have learned what this outbreak really is since then and that didn’t stop him from killing Mariah or beating Isaac to death, did it! I don’t care what this disease or illness is. It doesn’t matter what it could do to me if I wasn’t immune and got bitten. I would never harm my wife or children if they were bitten and not showing symptoms. Jeremiah and several other people in this self-righteous group of yours killed innocent people and worse, you killed loved ones that showed no signs of turning.

“I was told some of the people your group killed were bitten early in the Christmas attack and had been fine for over twenty minutes before you put bullets in their brains. We have been living with Mariah for over a week with no issues, and he still killed her.

“Believing in God and demons is the reason people in your group willingly murdered trusted loved ones. So no, I will not join you in your delusional fantasies of demons and Heaven and Hell. I refuse to join you in hunting down and murdering immune people just because you think they are possessed by higher demons, and I will not allow anyone that thinks that way to stay on this ranch any longer.”

Jeremiah is furious. He is being forcefully held back from getting to me and disarmed by the people he whipped into a frenzied mob of religious retribution. I have no intention of letting him off the hook for what he has done or them for following him.

“Everyone here knows if the world didn’t come to an end Jeremiah would be sitting in prison for what he did to his wife and daughter. I admit I have killed my share of people and regret only Craig, Mike’s father, but I would not change what I did if I had to do it again. But you, your own flesh and blood. You will have to deal with the guilt of that until the day you die.

“The rest of you can believe in whatever God you want or none at all, I don’t care and never have, but I want everyone that believes that the infected are possessed by demons off of my property now. If that is all of you then you’ll have to kill me to stay, but I’m guessing most of you see what Jeremiah was trying to do and why.”

For a split second I regret what I have just said. I had everyone on my side and now realize with my proclamation of eviction I have turned many, if not all of the people in the crowd, back against me. The ranch is all they know of safety and survival, even with its limitations against a running horde.

The regret is short lived because the attention of the crowd turns from me to a rumbling in the woods to the north beyond the fence. The sound is coming from the front of the property, the way we assumed a swarm might arrive if following the roads to us. The people in the crowd begin to scatter in fear. Where they can run to in an enclosed fence, I’m not sure, but with the first appearance of an infected runner the panic will set in and everyone will scatter to their own little corner to face death. This group didn’t train for attacks, and outside of our recent encounter in Grants Pass, they haven’t survived a major attack the way my ranch members did either. Even with the training we had, I’m not sure most of my group would stand their ground this time.

What breaks through the tree line is the same terror I encountered on the road the other night. A herd of cows and horses is running along the fence. Everyone still in the group in front of me collectively sigh and release a small chuckle at the fear they were feeling, but my fear is increasing. The cattle aren’t just running, they are panicked and frothing. They have been on the move for a while and have no intention of stopping.

Turning around, I yell, “Simone run, they’re coming! I’m going to jump.”

The six on the other side of the moat turn and start running to the back fence. Once they make it into the woods they can follow the animals that hopefully know the safest direction to head, and I will follow.

I get ready to run to make the jump and get hit from the side. When I land, Jeremiah is leaning over me trying to grab one of my guns. I kick him twice in the balls, and he doesn’t flinch. I punch him square in the throat, and he still relentlessly tugs at the gun on my hip trying to get it free from the auto-lock holster that holds it in place.

“Jeremiah, turn around!” yells a bloody pulp of a face that I barely recognize.

Isaac is standing behind my attacker. When Jeremiah straightens up and turns to face his brother, I finally understand why my attacks were having no effect on him. There is a knife sticking out of Jeremiah’s back and barely a trickle of blood appears staining his shirt. Far too little an amount of blood for the size of the knife or for the identical hole next to the protruding handle where the knife must have first been stuck.

Jeremiah is immune.

I stand and am about to pull my trigger and kill this lying sack when the back of Jeremiah’s head opens up and its contents hit me in the face and chest. Isaac pulled the trigger that ended his brother’s life. This scene of fratricide and me covered in brains and blood is horrific enough without the shouts of terror that rise from the now scattering crowd. The swarm that was chasing the cattle is here and has turned its attention to the screaming human delicacies that are enclosed within the property’s fence like sheep locked up for a wolf’s dinner.

“Isaac, get to the tower,” I yell and point the direction for him go.

He moves off in a slow and pained way.

I pull the knife out of Jeremiah’s back and use it to cut a large piece of his shirt free. I set it on fire with my lighter and toss it into the ditch causing a roaring flame to burst skyward and spread out along the length of the canal.

I run past Isaac, who is still trying to make it to the nearest tower, and pull the rope that Arthur attached to the siren turning it on. Any infected that had an idea of continuing their pursuit of the horses and cows should be pulled to the spot where I am standing. I lift the ladder that is laying next to the tower and begin my climb to hopeful safety.

The noise is deafening at the top, but at least here I have a slim chance of life. I also just have one ear to worry about losing my hearing in.

Isaac is climbing up the side followed by someone from Isaac’s group that I don’t know. Gun fire is erupting all over the ranch now and the infected have breached the fence in several locations. There are too many of them, in fact, it is probably all of the remaining infected in the area that are converging on the ranch. I cut some of my own shirt off, wad it up, and shove it in my good ear. It barely helps cutting down the noise.

I help Isaac up once he reaches the top and look over the side to see the next person’s progress. I don’t like the look on this guy’s face, he isn’t fearful enough about what is going on down there. I look at Isaac and hand signal him to look at the man that is near the top of the ladder. Isaac shakes his head
no
and rubs his finger across his throat—signaling death. I kick the ladder to the side and watch the man and ladder fall into the growing mass of infected below.

I gaze at the scene of horror for a few minutes, amazed that anyone is able to survive as long as they do with so many infected around. The crowd of over one hundred people is no match for the thousands that pour onto the property. Every person hiding is eventually found and ripped to pieces while they are consumed. Some people managed to hide in a few of the small sheds or in the rafters of the riding stable, but those buildings are either already crushed or are being pulled down while I watch.

No infected followed Simone and Olivia into the woods that I could tell. The swarm is staying on this side of the burning ditch and several feet away from it, none are attempting to cross it or find a way around.

Isaac is lying down. He is either sleeping, passed out, or dead. I’m not sure which. There isn’t anything I can do, so I lie down as well and watch the clouds move across the sky as I listen to the continuous, headache inducing blare of the siren. 

Chapter 24

Our World

Oregon.

Hannah and Mike are sitting in the cab of Donald’s truck. Benjamin is sitting in Hannah’s lap in the front passenger seat next to Donald, who is driving. Donald’s wife, Karen, is in the back with their daughter Katy. Mike is entertaining William and Amelia. Donald’s son, Joshua, is driving the other truck in front of them.

“Tell your son to drive north. I don’t think we should go through Rogue River,” Hannah tells Donald.

“So you’re the navigator now?” he asks.

She nods confidently back at him.

Donald grabs the CB radio, and calls to his son, “Joshua, drive north on Wards Creek Road and follow the loop on Sardine Creek Road to Highway 99.”

“Got it, Dad,” they hear back.

“Now I want you to drive to the farm and pick up any of Isaac’s people that we can.”

Donald idles his truck at the intersection wanting to follow his son’s truck north. “Your father wanted me to get you and everyone in the back to safety.”

“If Isaac did what my father told him, most of the kids and teenagers from Isaacs’s group are at the farm. We have to get them to safety. The farm will be more of a death trap than the ranch is right now. Once we pick up everyone we can head out the same way as Joshua.”

“You’re the boss,” Donald says and calls his son on the CB to explain what is going on as he turns south.

When the truck pulls onto the farm, no real explanation is given to the people and children standing around, and in this world, details are often not needed if you know to say the right thing.

“If you want to live, get in the back of the truck, or follow us in your vehicles.”

Nothing more has to be said. For almost nine months the remaining human population has had to follow one mantra and that is
listen
when someone offers you a way to survive or die. Fifteen children and teenagers are loaded into the back of the truck with the ranch survivors and their animals. Nine adults are going in their own trucks, and six people choose to stay at the farm and take their chances with Jeremiah’s wrath once he is finished with Eddie and Simone Keeper.

Donald tells the other drivers which way they should head, and they drive off to catch up with the other semi. He double checks with those saying they are remaining and closes up the back of the truck after they repeat their refusal to go.

Donald drives the truck north to begin their trek that will take them past The Oregon Vortex and the supplies they dropped there. They can’t see onto the ranch from the road as they drive past, so they don’t know what state of trouble Eddie and the others are in.

“Would you look at that,” Donald says while looking in his side view mirrors behind the truck.

Everyone peers into the mirrors to see a large herd of cows and horses run across the road behind them toward the property.

“Do you think they are finally returning to the ranch?” Donald’s wife Karen asks.

“Donald, get us out of here,” Hannah yells. “They must be running from a swarm.”

Donald accelerates the truck and drives out of view around a corner before the tail end of the cattle herd goes by. There may not be anything chasing those animals, but this isn’t the kind of world where you wait to see if you are right about nothing happening.

“We can’t see them now. Stop the truck.”

“What?”

“Stop the truck, Donald! I’m getting out,” Hannah says handing Benjamin to Karen in the back.

While she is strapping on her backpack and grabbing her gun, Mike is doing the same.

Donald brings the truck to a stop but isn’t about to let her go without an explanation. “If there’s a swarm back there you can’t help your parents now.”

“Olivia stayed behind, and I’m going to get her. I know the woods better than they do. I’ll run to the back fence and guide them to The Vortex if we can make it out. You get everyone else to Katherine’s place.”

Hannah jumps to the ground from the truck step, and Mike hops out of the cab following her. Donald watches as they take off running through the trees. Karen moves up front to sit next to Donald and puts her hand on his arm, giving him a squeeze as she moves by. Benjamin, in her arms, just looks between the two and seems content to be with these familiar faces that have cared for him so often before.

“We have to trust that they know how to survive,” she says to her husband.

The truck moves on.

*

The beeline Hannah is making through the trees has her angled to intersect the path the cattle herd took just beyond the back of the fence.

“They lit the fire,” Mike yells looking at the smoke rising through the blinking flashes of ranch they can see through the trees as they run. His inattention costs him with a sharp pain and a quick fall onto his back when he runs into a low branch. He’s a bit dazed but gets up and continues running to catch up with Hannah, who didn’t slow down or stop when he fell.

Hannah turns to run out of the tree line into the open land they made beyond the fence for security. She has to make a running loop like she is rounding bases on a baseball field to go around one of the piles of burnt bones and ashes from the bodies of the large winter attack.

“I see them,” Hannah calls out finally turning back to see Mike running much farther back than she expected him to be. “Mom, over here!” she yells getting the escaping groups attention while slowing down for Mike to catch up.

Mike finally catches up, while Hannah waits at the fence for the others to reach them.

“What happened to your head? You’re bleeding.”

“I hit a branch when I wasn’t looking.”

Hannah looks at him like he managed to sink an unsinkable boat. “How did you hit a branch?”

“I’m taller than you, duh. I was looking at the—”

His words are cut off by the piercing yell of the siren. Simone, Olivia, Timothy, Dianne, Gayle, and her son Tyler, all climb the fence while Hannah and Mike look at the ranch. In the distance, they see sections of the fence near the front of the property collapse as the infected pile up against it. The infected burst onto the property through the openings to get at the wailing sirens sound.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He isn’t coming, Hannah.”

A split second is all she has and is all she takes before moving the small group away from the open area by the fence.

“Follow me. I can get us through the woods to The Oregon Vortex. Dad made me hike the way there and back after he let those idiots move here.”

They all take off running to the cover of the trees.

“Are you going to be okay?” Hannah asks running next to Mike.

“Yeah. It isn’t bleeding bad, is it?”

“No, just a little.” She smiles and gives him a playful shove toward another tree, and then her face turns serious and into a frown.

“You’re worried about your dad?”

She nods and looks to the other side to see her mom returning her look of concern. Their worry is overshadowed by the fear they feel with the sounds of the occasional gunshot from the ranch that can be heard over the siren.

“Do you know what your father planned with the siren?”

“No, but that sound will echo through the hills and could bring every infected in Grants Pass and Medford to the ranch.”

“Hannah, we got a call from Grandpa Keith before the fight started.”

Hannah looks at her mom with surprise but doesn’t say a word.

“He told us that the infected are dying off. He said once they start running, they die within two weeks. He saw it happen all along the coast.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“So if we survive this we just have to wait a week or two and no more infection?”

“Hannah watch out!” Mike yells too late to stop her.

She runs right into a cow standing in the woods. Getting back up from her awkward fall she sees spread out in the forest before them all the horses and cattle that were running from the infected threat. They are all breathing heavily and most have white froth dripping from their mouths.

“Either they think it’s safe or can’t hear the infected anymore because of the siren. We should keep moving in any case,” Hannah tells everyone.

“Keep going forward. I’m going to look for one of our horses,” Simone tells the group. “If I can find him and bring him with us, this group might follow us as well.”

Looking for Buster their lead horse turns out not to be necessary. The cattle start following Hannah, Olivia, and their mom through the woods as soon as they started walking again. It helped of course that they were offering carrot and cucumber slices from their packs.

“It’s only three miles to the Vortex, but it will take us a few hours to walk there over the hills, longer if we run into any water before we get there and the herd stops to drink,” Hannah explains and continues moving northeast after checking her compass.

*

“What do we do now?” Mike asks as the group arrives at some houses and buildings to the south of The Vortex.

“We wait,” Hannah says preventing her mom Simone from giving a response.

“Hannah, there’s a truck here that your dad brought. I think we should try to join the rest of the group with Greg and Katherine.”

“You can’t go, Mom,” Hannah says and grabs her mom’s arm preventing her from making it to the truck. “You’re not in charge out here. This is our world.”

“Hannah, you are twelve years old and won’t speak to me like that,” she says with a desperate anger while pulling her arm away from her daughter’s grasp. “We are going to catch up to Donald in the trucks or meet them at Katherine’s place. I am getting what’s left of our family back together.”

“Mom, I can’t let you go. If you take that truck you will get us all killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have to show you on the map,” she says and continues talking while taking it out of her backpack and placing it on the hood of the truck. “Mike and I have been going on the scavenging runs together and have a better idea what things sound like echoing through the hills than you do, Mom.”

“We all heard the second siren when we were at the top of the first hill. Arthur sent someone ahead of the trucks with another siren to pull the infected swarms in Medford away from the route we had to take to Katherine’s place. The reason the other siren we heard was changing pitch was because it was driving around and not in one place. It should have been heading north on Table Rock Road to Sams Valley.

“We didn’t hear it anymore once we got to the top of the second hill, only the one from the ranch is still blaring, which means that truck must have been overrun. The Medford swarms were probably closer to the west side when the truck went by.”

“Who took the siren ahead of the trucks?”

Hannah doesn’t want to answer her mom. “Mrs. Langford.”

“Patricia?” she says with shock. “Who went with her?”

“She went alone. I heard her and Arthur speak before she left. They said their goodbyes and said they would meet again, but they didn’t mean in this life. She wouldn’t have stopped the truck to turn off the siren. It would only stop if she was overrun.”

Bringing her mom back to the present, Hannah continues talking and pointing to the map. “With the other siren off and a swarm so close to the hills, the entire population of Medford will be heading to the only sound left to hear, the siren at the ranch. They will be crossing Sardine Creek Road to the south of us. If you drive down there, you will either be killed by a swarm or you’ll bring it back up the road to us if you can escape. Katherine’s place is south of Medford, and we have no way of getting there while the siren is blaring and the infected are still alive.”

Simone pulls Hannah and Olivia into a fierce motherly hug. “That isn’t what I wanted to hear Hannah,” she says.

“I know, Mom, but it’s the truth. Dad wouldn’t have let me go on the runs if he didn’t think I was ready. I know what I’m doing out here.”

“Okay, young lady. I guess that puts you in charge. What should we do?”

Hannah looks at the faces of the group all turned to her for direction. It is one thing to blindly say the truth in the heat of the moment and quite another to be expected to come up with a plan for survival for more lives than your own.

“The truck bed is already packed with supplies, and Dad had Donald fill these buildings with more. We can come back here for extra things if it is safe, but now we should take the truck and head north.”

“Sams Valley is directly to our east on the map so if any infected are pulled to the siren from that area, they might cross where we are right now. If we head north a few miles, we should be out of any danger area. We can find a house and either wait for the siren to stop or the infected to die off.”

“The horses and cattle have all gone down to the creek. Should we try to get them?” Mike asks.

“We can call for them when we get moving and see if they follow. It would be nice to have them around, but we don’t have any feed for them, so they’ll have to manage on their own the way they have been.”