This Shattered Land - 02 (26 page)

When
we reached a point on the map that was five miles from our stop for the day, I
suggested that we take a break and eat a quick lunch. The combined growling of
our stomachs was bound to attract more walkers if we didn’t do something soon
to silence it. We stopped at the top of a steep hill and dropped our packs on
the side of the road. A canopy of tree limbs overhead provided a cool, shady
spot to rest while we ate. The forest on either side of us was thick with dark
green brush and saplings that competed for space beneath tall hardwoods. Tom
and I sat down on the cracked pavement next to our packs while we munched on
venison jerky and cold flatbread. Out of habit, I laid my assault rifle across
my lap and sat where I could watch both sides of the road. Tom was telling me a
story about the night that Brian was born, and how his mother was in labor for
nearly ten hours. He smiled as he reminisced, describing in loving detail his
little boy’s wrinkly face and his tiny little fingers and toes. I was enjoying
the story until I heard a rustling off to my right behind where Tom sat,
followed by a low, inhuman grunt. I laid my food aside and slowly got to my
feet.

“Tom.”
I hissed, cutting him off mid-sentence.

He
snapped out of his reverie and looked up at me. “What, what is it?”

I
pointed toward the woods behind him and leveled my rifle. Tom hopped to his
feet.

“What
do you see?” He asked.

“Nothing
yet, but I hear it.”

“Hear
what?” Tom said, his voice sharp and impatient.

“Bear
cub.”

Tom’s
eyes went wide. “Shit. Not good.”

Having
grown up close to the woodlands, Tom was well aware of the danger posed by a
nearby bear cub. Or more to the point, the danger posed by its mother. Carolina
black bears, like most other species of bear, hibernate during the winter. When
spring comes, they wake up ravenously hungry. If they have cubs, they are
extremely protective and will attack anything they perceive as a threat to
their young. Most bear attacks that occurred before the Outbreak happened when
hikers and tourists got too close to a mother bear and her little ones. I
backed slowly down and away from the hilltop. Tom followed suit. We didn’t make
it more than four steps before a young cub the size of a large dog emerged from
the forest with a surprisingly quiet rustle of foliage.

“Just
keep moving.” I muttered.

Tom
flipped the safety on his rifle. I set the selector on mine to full auto. The
ammunition our weapons fired was great against people, undead, and the
occasional coyote. Against a bear, however, it was woefully underpowered, and unless
we shot it with every round in our magazines it would do little more than piss
the thing off. Just as I was making a mental note to swap out my M-6 for a
bigger rifle on the next leg of the journey, another cub emerged from the woods
with its mother close behind. She noticed us immediately and lowered her head,
her ears flattening and a deep, menacing rumble boiling from her chest. Foam
dripped from her muzzle as she took a few steps toward us. The little ones
behind her sniffed and pawed at the food we left behind. They could have it for
all I cared. It was only a day’s worth anyway.

“Okay,
man,” Tom whispered, “Let’s just back-

The
bear let out a huff, then bounded toward us. My heart hammered in my ears, my
vision narrowed down to a thin black tunnel, and somewhere far, far away, I
heard Tom shout as the staccato crack of gunfire filled my ears. Everything
around me slowed to a crawl. The creature’s gait was deceptively clumsy and
awkward, masking its incredible speed. It covered nearly half the distance between
us in the space of seconds. I vaguely wondered what that light in front of me
was before it dawned on me that I was seeing the bear through the red-dot scope
on my M-6. I squeezed the trigger, and instinctively leaned forward into the
rifle to keep the barrel from rising. Something strange happened to the bear’s
face beyond the bright orange muzzle flash. Its snout disintegrated, and red
splotches stitched a ragged line up its forehead. The chamber locked open on my
weapon as the last shell casing ejected from it. I leapt to my right, barely
clearing the massive animal’s path as it roared by bellowing in rage. I rolled
when I hit the ground and came up to one knee, trying to keep my hands from
shaking as I dug in a pouch for another magazine. It pulled clear and I tried
to load it into the rifle, but in my panic, I had forgotten to eject the empty
one still loaded in the mag well. I press the release button and ripped it
free, then slammed the loaded one home. At the same time that the rifle’s stock
made contact with my shoulder, the bear faltered, stumbled, and fell to the
ground. It had enough momentum to roll several yards down the hill before
tumbling to a stop in the shallow ditch at the edge of the pavement. I stood
still for a moment, watching it and listening to my own ragged breathing. The
bear thrashed and roared in the tall grass, dark gouts of blood pouring from
the ruins of its face.

I
pulled back the charging handle on the M-6 and released it, chambering a round.
The bear seemed to be weakening, its bellowing no longer crazed and angered as
it was a few moments before. It was the heartbreaking call of an animal dying,
and dying in agony. I took a few steps closer and steadied my aim. The animal
laid its head on the ground and went still for only a couple of seconds, but it
was all I needed. Two quick shots struck behind its ear sending frangible lead
into its brain, ending its suffering. It shuddered a few times in death throes
before going still. I didn’t move for a long moment, all I could do was take
deep breaths while I willed my pulse to slow down.

“You
okay, Eric?”

I
looked over my shoulder and saw Tom walking toward me.

“Yeah,
I think so. You?”

“Other
than shitting my pants and having a heart attack at the same time, I think I’m
good.”

I
let out a nervous, shaky laugh. My hands began to tremble as I climbed to the
top of the hill and looked around. Our lunch lay in the dirt near our open
packs.

“Where
did the cubs go?” I said.

“Don’t
know.” Tom replied.

We
walked a quick circle around the roadside and found barely visible tracks
leading into the woods.

“Must
have got spooked by all the noise.” Tom said.

I
sighed. “What do you think their chances are without their mother around?”

Tom
shook his head. “Not good, man. Not good at all.”

We
left our food in the dirt by the side of the road. It was no good now, and
neither one of us had much of an appetite anymore. The bear cubs didn’t have
enough time to wreak any havoc on our packs, thankfully. It was the only good
thing that came out of the situation. The walk to the hostel where we met Gabe
and the others was a somber one. We found a few more undead along the way, but
those we killed quickly and efficiently. We were no longer in the mood for games.

Chapter 9

The Journal of Gabriel Garrett:

Confidence Course

I
knew the kid was good, but I have to admit that he exceeded my expectations. I
looked down for barely a second to make sure the MP5 had a round in the chamber,
and heard a dull fleshy thump. When I looked up, one walker was already on the
ground with its skull caved in. Brian yanked his axe loose and ran a quick lap
around the ghouls’ perimeter. They staggered against one another trying to
follow him, tripping over their own feet in the process. One of the walkers
wandered out ahead of the rest, and Brian gripped the axe like a baseball bat as
he lined up a shot at its knee. He grunted and turned his hip into the swing,
nearly severing the lower part of the corpse’s leg. It went down onto the stump
of its thigh and toppled over to the side. Rather than finish it off, Brian
checked behind him to make sure there was nothing to trip over, and backed up a
few steps. The walkers followed him without paying heed to the crippled corpse
at their feet.

One
by one, they tripped over it and sprawled to the ground in groaning, struggling
heaps. Brian kept backtracking in a wide circle, occasionally darting forward
to chop into the back of a ghoul’s head. He struck fast and moved away before
the others could reach him. A couple of the walkers gave up on Brian and
started wandering in my direction. I let them get within a few yards before
dropping them with two quick shots. By the time they hit the ground, Brian had
reduced the number of undead down to three. I watched him execute a rolling
somersault around behind one of them and bring it to the ground with a quick
chop to the ankle. He left it to squirm and performed the same technique on the
remaining two. Only when they were all down and unable to get back up did he
finally go around and kill them permanently. As he pulled his axe from the
skull of the last infected, I let the MP5 dangle from its strap and clapped. A
proud grin stretched across my face.

“That
was good work kid. Damn good work.” I said.

He
was sweating and winded, but he beamed back nonetheless. “Thanks.”

“Well
now that you boys are done playing, you can get to work dragging these corpses
out of here.”

I
turned around to see Sarah frowning at us. “Oh come on, don’t be like that.” I
said. “He did great.”

Sarah
stared hard at me for a moment before shaking her head and heaving a resigned
sigh. She walked over to her son and kissed him on the cheek, then tilted his
face up with a single delicate finger under his chin.

“Honey,
you don’t need to prove yourself to me, understand? It’s not worth risking your
life just to show that you can fight.”

“I’m
not trying to prove anything to
you
, mom,” Brian said, “I’m proving it
to myself.”

Sarah
blinked, and took a half step back. “Brian, you know that we’ll protect you no
matter what.”

“You
see, that’s the problem. I don’t want you to have to protect me. I want to know
that I can protect myself in case…” He stopped abruptly, and looked down.

“In
case what, sweetie?”

He
turned his face back up toward his mother. “In case something happens to you.”

Sarah’s
expression grew taut, like a string under tension, and then went blank. She
reached up a hand to brush a stray lock of hair from Brian’s face.

“Okay,
son. I understand.” She kissed him on the forehead, then leaned back and forced
a smile. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up. Eric and your father should be back
soon.”

Brian
nodded, and broke a faint smile. The tension between them faded. I was glad to
see it, the last thing we needed was a family argument on the first day of the
trip. The next hour saw us use a tarp to drag the dead bodies to a steep hill
and send them tumbling down into a ravine at the bottom. At one point while we
worked, I thought I heard the far away staccato rattle of automatic weapons
firing. I stood up straight and stared through the forest in the direction of
the sound. Brian did the same.

“You
hear that?” I asked.

“Yeah,
I did.” Brian replied. “You think that’s my dad?”

I
was silent for a moment before responding. “It could be. I hope not, but it
could be.”

“You
think he’s alright?”  

I
almost opened my mouth to say something comforting and false, but stopped
myself. “I don’t know. Don’t worry, they’re both tough guys, they can handle
themselves.”

“I
know that Gabe, but that gun was firing full auto. They wouldn’t use that many
bullets unless something’s wrong. Maybe we should go find them.”

The
kid was right. A black coil of dread began to cinch around my chest, but I
shook my head anyway. “We’re too far away to help, son. We have no idea how far
away those shots came from, or which direction. We could spend all day
wandering around on the road and not find anything.”

Brian’s
face told me that he didn’t like it, but he saw my logic.

“Come
on, let’s finish this up. If they aren’t here in two hours, we’ll go and search
for them, okay?”

Brian
nodded, his jaw tight with worry. When we got back, Sarah asked if we heard the
gunshots. I nodded, and told her the same thing I had told Brian. She agreed
with me, and we spent a tense afternoon sitting around the fire casting anxious
glances down the road in the direction Tom and Eric would be coming from. Two
hours passed. Then two hours and fifteen minutes. I was actually getting my
feet underneath me and taking a breath to suggest that we start searching when
Sarah pointed to the crest of a hill in the distance.

“I
think that’s them.” She said, standing up.

I
picked up my binoculars and looked to where she pointed. Sure enough, I saw
Eric’s unmistakable blond mop sticking out from underneath his headscarf, and
Tom’s dark silhouette walking along beside him. I let out a relieved breath
that I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Yeah
that’s them.”