This Shattered Land - 02 (16 page)

“Sarah,
I don’t have a shot, take him out.” I said.

Nothing
happened for a few seconds. Just when it looked like he was about to make it to
the cover of the forest, he jerked sideways from an impact and pitched over
into the dirt. He made a weak attempt to get up, but another round took him
high in the back and he flopped to the ground, just like flipping off a switch.

“Nice
shooting, Sarah.” I said into the radio. 

Sarah
keyed her mike. “Thanks. Thought the bastard was going to get away for a second
there.”

“Eric,
keep the hostiles covered,” Gabe interrupted, “I’m going in to make sure
they’re all down for good, over.”

“Copy.”
I said, and settled down to wait for Gabriel to show up.

I
was once again amazed at how quickly it all happens. You spend hours planning,
you worry, you lose sleep, you have moments of guilt, doubt, and fear, and you
second-guess every little tactic that you decide to employ. You prepare your
weapons, and your hiding spot. You wait in the freezing cold for hours,
impatient, tired, and hungry. You try to ignore how bad you have to take a leak,
and the chill, annoying water that is seeping up through your ground mat in
spite of the fact that it is supposed to be waterproof. Finally, the time comes
to deliver the ordnance downrange and all of it, the entire fight, is over in
less than ten seconds. For the men at the bottom of the meadow, this is the
last place they will ever see, the last morning they will ever wake up, and for
the ones who did not die first, their last thoughts in this world were frantic
and terrified. In that moment, I could not help but wonder if some day I might
be on the receiving end of a sniper ambush. The thought was not a pleasant one.

A
few minutes went by while I waited for Gabriel to appear. A few hundred yards distant,
just beyond the edge of the tree line, I spotted him walking toward the kill
zone. From my perch, he looked like a moving speck against the dark brown of
the dead meadow grass. I shifted my rifle to get a better look. Slashes of face
paint crossed his face in brown and green smears. His ghillie suit hung from
his lower back, lashed to his web gear with a couple of nylon straps. The barrel
of his rifle pointed toward the sky over his left shoulder with the stock
jutting out past his hip on the other side. He had his .45 pistol in one hand
as he approached the bodies of the raiders lying prone on the ground. They
stood out like splashes of color on a black canvas against the backdrop of the
other long dead corpses. It took Gabe about five minutes to reach the clearing
and check the bodies of the marauders. Once satisfied that they were well and
truly dead, he relieved them of their weapons and reached up to key the mike on
his radio.

“All
clear, folks. Repeat, all clear, you can come on down now.”  

I
stood up and stretched, relishing the chance to let some of the tension out of
my cramped muscles. After folding up the ground mat, stripping off my ghillie
suit, and stuffing them both into a duffel bag, I slung the M110 over my
shoulder and made my way down the mountain. Before breaking the cover of the
tree line, I took a moment to stop and relieve myself on a birch tree. It is
amazing how much better something as simple as a good stretch and an empty
bladder can make you feel.

On
the way down, it occurred to me that a couple of years ago the prospect of
killing people in cold blood would have been sickening. Thinking back to the
person I was before the Outbreak, I had to shake my head. Was I really the same
guy? Hard to believe, considering how much I had been through. It was as if the
memories of the life I had once lived happened to someone else, a strange sort
of psychological disconnect that I didn’t know how to quantify.

The
sun rose higher over the eastern horizon as I walked, but the fog and cloud
cover clung stubbornly to the peaks, refusing to burn away under the
mid-morning light. The wind over the rocks was biting and cold. Mud clung to my
boots as I trudged down the mountain, making the terrain slippery and difficult
to traverse. Save for the lower peaks, the mountains around me were
indistinguishable from the Scottish Highlands where I had gone on vacation with
some friends of mine one summer in college. In the dim light of that morning,
the Appalachians looked every bit as gray and forbidding as those cold, craggy
mountains and sharp cliffs that dominated the Scottish high country.

Sarah
beat me down the meadow to the hillside with her husband and her son in tow. They
brought polarized ski goggles to protect our eyes from splashes of infected
fluids, and scarves to tie around our mouths. Tom wrapped the marauders weapons
in a makeshift haversack while Brian regarded their corpses with a mixture of
contempt and pity etched into his young face. It pained me to see it; no
twelve-year old boy should ever wear an expression like that. The rest of the day
saw us hauling dead bodies to the edge of the cliff on tarps and sending them
tumbling down into the hollow at the bottom.
Even with
Gabe’s immense strength on our side
, it was still backbreaking work moving
all that dead weight up the slope of the mountain. We got it done, but by the
time we were finished my back felt like someone had planted meat hooks in it.
The carrion birds that had plagued us the last few days followed their bounty
of corpses over the cliff’s edge and down to the rocks below. It took an effort
of will not to get my shotgun and blast a few of the little shits out of spite
for making my life so damn miserable over the last few days.

 When
we finally cleared the flat plateau at the top of the mountain, we closed the
gate behind us and took turns cleaning up. I finished bathing first, so I
started a fire in the pit out front and hung up a pot of water to boil. Through
the cabin’s open door, I saw Tom and Sarah seated at the kitchen table. They
looked tired, filthy, and worn out. Sarah, like other former law enforcement
officers I had met since the outbreak, wasn’t all that happy about having
killed a man. Contrary to Hollywood’s depiction of FBI agents, their work
rarely involved the use of deadly force. They were trained to
prevent
people from getting killed, not cause it. I wished I could think of something
to say that might make her feel better, but nothing came to mind that she
wouldn’t have thought of already, so I let her be.

The
stew boiled down into a reasonable thickness and softened up a handful of
smoked meat. I set it aside and made some flatbread in a skillet before taking
the whole spread into the kitchen and setting it on the table. Tom set out some
plates, and everyone dug in. After the day’s hard work, we were ravenous. No
one spoke for a while as we ate, we were all too busy shoveling food in our
faces. I finished my plate and went back for a second.

“So
what’s next, guys?” Sarah asked, sopping the last of the gravy from her plate
with a piece of bread.

“Gabe
and I were gonna take the river to Marion today, but that kind of got
derailed.” I said, turning to look at Gabe. “What do you say we take a day to
rest, and then head out the next?”

Gabe
nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

“What
about after that?” Tom asked, looking up at me from the table.

I
shrugged. “Well, I guess me and Gabe pack up our gear and head west.”

Sarah
and her husband exchanged a glance. I had a pretty good idea what was coming
next, but I stayed quiet. Better to let them get around to it on their own.

“We’ve
been talking, Tom and I.” Sarah said. “Everything that’s happened over the last
few days has gotten us thinking. We managed to take care of those raiders
today, but what about next time? There’s no way to know who else is out there.
If today taught us anything, it’s that nowhere is safe. If the three of us are
out here by ourselves, we’re always going to be a target for anyone who sees
this place. Sooner or later, more people are going to come along and try to
take it from us.”

Tom
nodded. “In all honesty, I don’t think just the three of us have much of a
chance out here on our own.” He made a gesture to Sarah and Brian. “That’s why
we’ve decided to go west to Colorado.”

I
shot a glance at Gabe. He did not look surprised. “On your own, or did you want
to go with us?” He asked.

A
faint smile tugged at the corners of Tom’s mouth. “If you’d have us along, we’d
be glad for the help.”

Gabe
turned to look at me. “What do you think Eric?”

I
could tell by his expression that he wanted the Glover family along for the
journey. It made sense, really. There is safety in numbers, and the more people
we had in our group, the better we could defend ourselves. We had spent enough
time with these people to know that they were trustworthy and capable. Besides,
I liked the Glovers and it would be nice to have them around on the long, weary
miles that lay ahead.

“I
think it’s a great idea.” I said. “To tell you the truth, I was a little
worried about what would happen to you three when we left. It’s probably for
the best if we all leave together.”

Tom
and Sarah looked relieved. They both let out a breath and smiled at each other.
Brian was practically jumping up and down.

“So
when do we leave?” The boy asked.

“I’d
say the plan is still the same as it was for just me and Gabe. We get supplies
from Marion and leave when we get back.” I said.  

“That
still leaves the question of how we’re all going to travel together.” Gabe
said, gesturing to toward the carport outside with his fork. “The Honda is a
two-seater.”

“Well,
we’ve plotted out most of the route already.” I said, turning to address Tom
and Sarah. “We were going to take the MUV, along with a trailer full of
supplies and equipment, as far as we can get with what little fuel we have
left. We plotted out places to stop along the way, and places we could hole up
if we ran into trouble.” I grabbed an empty chair from the kitchen table and
spun it around, sitting down and draping my arms over the back. A few seconds ticked
by in silence while I considered what to say.

“How
about this, we rotate out drivers and passengers among the adults. Brian is
small enough to ride standing in the back and hanging on to the roll cage. The
other two follow along behind on foot. The two in the vehicle proceed to a
pre-determined stopping point and wait. If you deviate from course, you leave
signs along to way to point out where you went. It’ll be slower going than what
we originally planned, but it’ll conserve fuel.”

I
looked at Gabe to see if he had anything to add. He just shrugged. “Sounds like
a place to start. We’ll try it and see how it goes.”

“Alright
then. We have a plan.” I smiled at Sarah, and she smiled back. I stood up from
my chair and pushed it back under the table. “I don’t know about you guys, but
I’m beat. I’m gonna get some sleep.”

The
others said a quick goodnight, and I walked outside to the bunker. Gabe stayed
behind to go over the details of what we had planned for the journey. I left
him to it, he could handle that part without me. It was mostly his ideas
anyway. Down in the bunker, I stripped off my boots and lay down in bed. I was
exhausted from the day’s labors, and I barely made it under the covers before I
drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter 5

Ride the River

So
there we were, back where we started a few weeks ago standing on the bank of
the Catawba River. Tom and Brian came with us, and helped us lug the canoe three
miles to the little dock we were using to launch it. A beautiful old house
dominated the hill behind us. Gabe and I searched the place when we found it,
but found no sign of the previous owner. The house was saddening to look at.
The exterior was stacked granite and shale with rough grey mortar, and a
massive flagstone patio with teak rails graced the back yard. I used to think
the shingles on the roof were wood, but upon closer inspection, I realized that
they were actually decorative pieces of PVC plastic. Vines crept up the walls,
helping the house blend in and seem more like a part of the landscape than an
actual structure. It belonged on a postcard from the English countryside, not
an overgrown riverbank in North Carolina. Rather than detract from the natural
feel of the forest around it, the house seemed to add something to it. Gabriel
caught me staring and turned to follow my line of sight.

“Somebody
must have paid a fortune to build this place so far away from town.” I said.

Gabe
nodded. “Not to mention the dock, the patio, and everything else. Hell, the
stonework from the back yard to the river must have cost at least a few grand
by itself.”

I
stared at the house a moment longer. “Well, I hope whoever lived here made it
somewhere safe. Maybe they can come back for it someday.”

Gabe
shot me a knowing glance. “You still miss your house in Charlotte, don’t you?”

I
nodded, and looked away. “You have no idea. I loved that place.”

Gabe
clapped me on the shoulder with one huge hand. The impact made me stumble a
bit.