Haven (Book 1): Journey

by Switzer, Brian M.

  When the herd overran the Crandall’s ranch, their house had burned, along with most of their belongings. Will’s last look at the land he’d lived on all his life would be etched on his mind for the rest of his days. The house was a pyre, with flames shooting twenty feet into the night sky. The corrals were on fire, and the conflagration had just spread to the barn and equipment shed. Cows ran every which way, crazed with pain and fear. Some were ablaze, some carried creepers that were rending their flesh and digging into their entrails. And everywhere there were the dead, more dead than Will thought could be in one place.

  The morning after they fled their home found them parked on the side of the road, ten miles from the ranch. There they sat, almost everything but the clothes on their backs gone. They had guns but little ammunition, and five bottles of water. Every few minutes Becky asked “Where will we go?”, or “What will we do?” And Will remembered the Army base 367 miles south and east.

  They headed in that direction, picking up their first survivor two days later.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Will stared through a pair of binoculars, unable to reconcile his mind with what his eyes saw.

  A group of four- Danny, Clay, and Tara, and himself- had left out at first daylight. A short time later they were standing atop a large bluff overlooking the river. Fort Leonard Wood occupied six-hundred acres on the opposite side. They could see a row of barracks, several parade grounds, and an artillery range. An Army base should bustle with activity on a Tuesday morning, but they saw no indications of human life. Instead, the binoculars revealed two dozen creepers in Army fatigues shuffling around the grounds.

  No safe haven existed here. Everything first he, and then the group, went through to get here was for naught. Even worse, they didn’t have a backup plan- the base had been the first and only goal. The future looked bleak.

  Will handed the glasses to Danny, who eyed the base through them for several minutes with no reaction. He passed the glasses back in silence, bent forward and placed a hand on each knee, and shouted gibberish at the ground. Clay turned from the bluff, cursing under his breath. Tears trickled down Tara’s cheeks as she cried in silence.

  This was no time to say, ‘I told you so’, yet Will felt an urge to say it just the same. How many times had he counseled the group not to get their hopes up, emphasizing that the fort was a target, not a guarantee of safety? He might as well have been speaking Greek for all the good it did. And these were his core people, the ones he counted on to stay strong in front of everyone else. If this group reacted with screams, curses, and tears, he could just imagine the wailing he would have to endure back at the camp.

  Will gave them five minutes then called enough.

  “Let’s go, buck it up,” he said in a steely voice. “We have people to care for and plans to make.”

  “Plans?” repeated Tara in a shrill, trembling voice. “What plans? There’s nothing left! How do you plan for that? Are we going to just wander the Midwest until the creepers get us all?”

  “No, Tara,” Will said, with steel in his voice. “That’s what we are not going to do. We’ll go back to camp, consider our options, and decide what to do next. Got it?”

  Tara Barraza was a thirty-one-year-old brunette with an incredible rack. The men wiled away endless hours debating if her breasts were real or fake. She was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles back home visiting her family in Lawrence when the outbreak began. Tara, her mom, dad, and little sister, Tess hid out in Tara’s childhood home for six weeks before hunger drove her parents out in search of food. The sisters never saw them again.

  Tara had a notion they might find safety in Wichita and that’s where she and her sister headed. Nine days later, Will found them trying to find something edible on the south shore of Clinton Lake. Both women were starving and Tess suffered from a severe case of flu. The group, eight strong at the time, spent ten days camped at the same spot, strengthening the girls up and nursing Tess back to health.

  As they traveled south, Tara, a staunch feminist, indicated an interest in learning to fight creepers and shoot guns. Will and Danny showed her what they knew from a lifetime handling of firearms and two months of battling the dead. She was a quick study, and it wasn’t long before she was making scavenging raids and comporting herself with aplomb.

  She met Will’s gaze for a full five seconds before dropping her eyes. “Got it,” she said in a curt tone of voice as she turned back toward the truck.

  All activity back at the camp ceased when they heard the rumble of the returning truck. The people who stayed behind gathered in a tight bunch and waited for the team to emerge from the big Ford. Will swallowed hard as he and the others climbed down and shut the doors. There was no reason for the group to ask them questions- the emotions imprinted on the scout team’s faces told of the overrun base.

  Tara’s sister, Tess, and eight-year-old Brianne cried soft little sobs. Jiri Horsky gave a sardonic smile and shook his head.

  Justin kicked at the dirt in front of him. “That’s it, then,” he said in a despondent voice. “That’s it.”

  Will swallowed his exasperation at their reaction and pleaded with the group. “Now wait a minute! Just wait a minute! We don’t know what’s in that fort. The only thing we know is this- the section we saw today didn’t look like it held any survivors, and there were creepers roaming the grounds. People could be hiding in any number of places all over that base. All we need to do is get eyes inside and see if we can find anyone.”

  “People hiding doesn’t sound like safety to me!” cried David’s wife, Kathy. “I thought the plan was to find a place that protected us from those infernal monsters!”

  “No one here led you to believe that, Kathy,” said Becky in a calm voice. “Everyone was aware this trip was a wing and a prayer and we didn’t have any idea what we’d find once we got here.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Asked Clay, a stocky, green-eyed twenty-one-year-old with a crooked mouth and cauliflower ears.

  Will, feeling helpless, caught Danny’s eye. Danny raised his eyebrows and gave Will a tight-lipped smile.

  “So what’s the plan?” Clay repeated when no one answered him the first time.

  “Listen—” Will began.

  “Here we go!” Kathy’s voice was shrill and furious. Hectored red spots rose on her cheeks. “We’ve followed you for eight months and who knows how many miles, and your plan wasn’t for shit! David and I could be in Colorado, safe in our cabin. Instead, we’re camped out in the wilderness in Who Gives A Shit, Missouri, with no shelter, little food, and zero safety. And now we find out you don’t even have a backup plan. This,” she gestured toward the fort, “was it!”

  Will didn’t speak. He glared at Kathy until she dropped her gaze, then he stepped back and swept his eyes around the group.

  “First of all,” he began; David tried to jump in and talk over him. “First of all,” he repeated, speaking louder and staring at David, “my family and I left our home for Fort Leonard Wood. Each of you—” he jabbed a finger at the group “—chose to come with us. And you know what? You can leave. Go to Colorado, or down south, or back home. Go wherever you think you can find safety.”

  “No, Will,” said Jiri in a soothing voice, “nobody’s talking about leaving.”

  “She was,” he said, hooking a savage thumb in Kathy’s direction. He took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what. There is shelter in that fort. There is food in that fort. We can make a safe place to live there, and sleep up off the ground.”

  Danny looked at Will with a quizzical expression. “Boss, do you mean going in and clearing the place out?”

  Danny Wilson had been the hired man on the Crandall’s cattle ranch outside Marysville Kansas. Will hired him on four years ago, when Danny was a twenty-year-old ringman at the local sale barn. Most everyone branded him a comer, and he was looking for a more permanent gig than the auction provided. Will purchased a 360-acre farm that bordered h
is land to the south. The work that came with the additional land was more than he and his son could keep up with. He offered Danny a dollar more an hour than he made at the sale barn, the house that sat on the new plot of land to live in rent-free, and five percent of the ranch’s annual profit. They’d worked side by side ever since, getting closer and closer as the years passed. In Danny’s work ethic, his loyalty and his perpetually sunny disposition Will saw a role model for his own son Coy.

  Will held his hands up, with a small gap between them. “Part of it. Just a part- as much as it takes to make a safe place to stay.

  “We go in with two teams. One finds a place big enough for all of us and makes it safe. The other is a scout group, there to find food and survivors, and to take out creepers. Hell, Danny, it’s the same thing we’ve been doing every day- we’re just doing it on a bigger scale this time.” Will could tell by the looks on their faces that he was convincing them.

  From his left came the sound of twigs breaking under a heavy pair of feet. He whirled around, pulling his gun as he turned. He expected to see a creeper but was taken aback when he found himself looking at an old man wearing bib overalls. Both his hands were empty and raised to shoulder level.

  “Who are you?” Will demanded. He moved toward the stranger quickly but with caution, keeping his gun aimed at him. Before he could answer Will asked again. “Who are you?”

  Danny and Jiri ran toward the stranger with him; he gestured for them to approach the man and he stopped ten yards away. All three men had their weapons trained on the stranger.

  A quick glance back told Will that at least three other people had their guns on him as well. Several others set up a perimeter guard in each direction, just as Will trained them.

  “Who are you?” Will asked a third time. “Do you have other people out there?” He was beginning to feel frantic. They had encountered other people on their trip south, and a few times encountered people that meant them harm. But no one had ever come within thirty feet of camp without being spotted. It was disconcerting.

  “Check him,” he said to Danny.

  Will pointed his sidearm at the newcomer’s face. “They’re going to check you for weapons. Understand that if you resist in any way, or if someone fires on us, whatever happens after that you won’t know it. Because we—” he wagged a finger at Jiri and himself “—will turn your head into a canoe.”

  For the first time, the man spoke. Without moving his hands he said “I have a Beretta M9 in my left front pocket and a Bowie knife in my right. I left a scatter-gun propped behind that big maple there.” He pointed his head at a large silver maple.

  “Go check on that,” Will commanded Justin.

  Danny walked to Will and placed the Beretta and knife in is his hands. “Like he said,” said Danny, nodding toward the weapons.

  The stranger spoke. “To answer your other questions, my name is George Platt, and I’m by myself.” His accent sounded odd to Will’s ears. ‘My’ came out as ‘muh’, and he shortened ‘myself’ to ‘m’self.’

  “Take your hat off,” Will ordered.

  “I have to move my hands to do that,” George said. A ghost of a smile flickered on the old man’s face.

  “You don’t want to be a smart ass,” Will said in a soft, steely voice. “Not right now.”

  “You’re right,” George said. “I apologize.”

  He took off his hat, revealing a comical comb-over atop a broad, fleshy face. He had mutton chop sideburns. Mutton chops? thought Will, bewildered. In 2015? Flecks of dandruff dotted his bushy eyebrows, and he sported a flowing neckbeard. Will was nonplussed. It seemed they had let the village idiot creep in undetected and get the drop on the whole group.

  “How did you find us?” Will asked.

  “I was in a tree stand a quarter mile north of here. I’m partial to doing my sleeping up off the ground- the biters don’t climb, far as I’ve been able to tell.”

  “We can check on that tree stand, you know,” Danny said in an angry voice. Will suspected that getting sneaked up on by a man who seemed a short step up from a simpleton wasn’t sitting easy with him, either.

  “Well, I’m sure you can, young’un,” George told him in an amiable tone. Will swallowed a grin as Danny’s face turn scarlet. In normal times, a man that called him ‘young’un’ would be on the receiving end of a punch in the mouth.

  “Anyways,” George continued, “I was up in my stand and could see the smoke from your fire. I came to make acquaintance last night but your little party was makin so much racket I was sure it would bring in biters, so I stepped back to m’tree. Boy, that catfish sure smelled fine, though. I’ve been eatin on nothing but cold canned soup and Payday bars for bout as far back as I can recall. At least since all this ruckus started.”

  Will looked at Danny and recognized the look on his face. Had they been that loud last night? Will thought it was a simple case of the group relaxing for the first time in weeks, but it seemed they’d made so much noise that even old Simple George thought it was too loud. He shivered and turned back to George.

  “What are you doing out this way at all, George?” He asked. “Do you live around here?”

  “Naw, I’m from down to Eastern Kentucky,” George told him. “I was headed west and thought I could find a place to hole up and maybe some food back at that fort, same as y’all.”

  “How long have you been hiding in the woods, listening to us?” Will asked.

  “Well, the first time I came by, you were gone.” He pointed at Will. “I figured you to be the lead man of the outfit, so I didn’t want to come out till you were here. Then I heard you folks arguing and figured out I better get my two cents in before you took on trying to make a safe house in that fort.”

  “What two cents?” Will was losing interest in the conversation. George may not be as simple as he came across, but there was nothing for Will to learn from him when it came to fighting creepers.

  “You folks don’t need to mess with that fort a-tall. There’s a safe place not one hundred fifty miles down the road. A place with plenty of food and water, and dang few biters. And I can take you there.”

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  “I drove a truck over the road just shy of fifty years,” George began. “I’ve been to every state in the Union. For ‘bout six of those years, I was haulin’ milk for The Ohio Valley Dairy over by Louisville. Most times, I’d run it to a cheese plant in a place called Carthage, southbound on I-44 from here. Now, this Carthage is a real pretty town, medium-sized, nice folks. Way back when it was just a little burg, someone discovered a huge limestone deposit up north of the town line. Turns out it wasn’t your normal limestone. It was denser, and that density gave it a kinda ‘marbled’ look. They called it Carthage Marble and for a while, that stone was real popular with the rich folk. They even used it to build the Capitol buildin’ in Jefferson City.”

  “That’s right,” Sylvia said, “I remember studying Carthage Marble when we did the Missouri History block in junior high school.”

  “How do you know all that?” Will asked, wondering how a man who seemed so simple was up to speed on the intricacies of dense marble.

  “At the driver’s check-in gate there was a rack of pamphlets with information about the place. I used to read those pamphlets while I was waiting in line to empty my trailer. Now here’s the important part, what I’m getting ready to tell you.

  “At some point the limestone played out, and they closed the quarry. They left behind a three-hundred-foot deep pit that’s about seventy-acres around. At the bottom of the pit, like fingers coming from the palm of your hand—” he held out his hand, palm-up with his fingers splayed out— “were eight to ten shafts that tunneled straight into the limestone. Not down, but straight back. Are you following?” he looked at the people clustered around him in a semi-circle. A few of them nodded but most just stared with rapt attention.

  “Okay. So the pit sat ignored for a lot of years. Back in the
late sixties, a local feller had an idea. He started a company and cleared out the quarry. They cleaned out the shafts and shored up the ones that needed it. They got the electric flowin’ and laid nice, wide access roads down to the bottom. Then they leased out warehouse space to anybody that wanted it. And I’m talking enormous amounts of room here. A huge beer distributorship used one of the tunnels for years; there were entire factories in some of the others. The shafts, see, they’re so big and go so far back, it’s near impossible to use up all the space.

  “I’ll give you an idea of the size of these shafts. This other company used to mine lead the same way in a little two-horse town across the Oklahoma border, called Picher. They say a feller who knowed what he was doing and had the right maps could walk the forty-five miles from Carthage to Picher, underground the whole way. And the tunnels are so deep in the earth that the temperature is always nice and cool, no matter what the weather is like up top.”

  “So what are you saying?” Will asked, but he had already formed a mental image of the operation George described and had a pretty good idea what he was saying.

  “It’s simple,” George said. “You pick you a tunnel. You go back two hundred yards, make sure it’s free of biters, then you block off any path from the rear. Guard the front, and you have yourself a biter-free livin’ space. And a hundred different companies had warehouses inside. I saw trucks runnin’ in and out for Nabisco, Land O’ Lakes, Country Pride, Hostess- you name it. A lot of the warehouses were refrigerated, see, so there should be all types of food. Plus the quarry’s out away from town, so there’s game to hunt. Heck, it’s surrounded by farmland, so there might be cows and chickens and whatnot if they ain’t all starved. You got yourself a comfortable, safe place with plenty of food to make you a home.”

  Will spotted a problem right away, but Danny beat him to the punch. “Wait,” Danny said. “If you know about these tunnels, then so does every other truck driver who ever delivered a load there. Not to mention the employees at the companies that leased space in the warehouses and worked at the factories, plus the people who lived in the town. So there’s got to be people staying in those shafts already.”